Dance of Sun and Moon
by BlackMageRose13
Summary: Hinata is missing. Naruto, Neji and Sakura have gone after her, Neji is fighting with Sasuke, who is after Itachi, who is in turn being stalked by the perpetrator of this entire mess. Bizarre sidequests, random encounters and boss battles RPG parody style
1. I'll be waiting for you

BMR13- This is the redone version of Dance of Sun and Moon, I'm still going over all the chapters and damn those things are long! Anyway I hope you like the editing new content I placed in this. Also to the people who read my other story 'Glorious Sky' thank you for all your positive responses yes I will continue writing that although it won't be as much fun for me to write as this one. Also people, get over the fact that Hiashi is now a cleaner, I didn't think that it was that funny.

Dedicated- To my gorgeous reviewers, dublehelix previous beta reader and still my best friend, awesome C2 managers kenshinlover2002 and WingchanOne (I think I wrote it wrong again . . .) and authoress friends serialhugger and juliagulia1017.

Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto or FF8 opening

**She lifted her head to the sky, closing her eyes as she felt the cool breeze caress her face, bringing with it the ever present tang of sea salt. With one pale white hand she pulled off her sandals, dropping them with a careless gesture. A smile lit her face as she sank her toes into the warm silken sand. Her eyes opened and she began to walk slowly down the beach, her movements languid and relaxed as she inched her way down the sand dune.**

**The girl walked a few steps into the water, enough so her feet would sink into the wet sand. She ignored the sudden bite of cold as she looked out onto the ocean, loving its quiet intensity. The water was dark azure today with the occasional strands of white foam adding to its beauty and since she has taken her time to walk down, it was now a deep shining sapphire, glowing like a jewel with the sun rising behind it. The waves continued lapping at her feet, covering her wriggling toes with gritty sand. A peaceful look crossed her face and she seemed to shut out the world around her as she looked out to the ocean.**

**Suddenly she rubbed her arms as if she were cold her eyes troubled, a rough warm hand began to rub against the warm curve of her arm and she looked up in shock. Her pale eyes widened and she almost spoke out except by some unspoken agreement they agreed it would be best this way.**

**A familiar person looked down at her, the charmingly mischievous grin as ever plastered across his youthful face, he handed over his jacket which she slipped on without a word. Together they sat down to watch the ocean, with her sitting close almost leaning against him, her knees against her chest while he sat with his long legs stretched out. **

**Every now and again she look at him, tearing her glance from the ocean to the mesmerising depths of his eyes, a blue more vibrant that the sky and the ocean, the look on his face combining his forceful energy with a sadder wistfulness. At once old and young she never got tired of seeing them.**

**Suddenly the silence was broken.**

'**I'll be here . . .'**

'**Why?'**

'**I'll be "waiting" . . . here,'**

'**For what?'**

'**I'll be waiting . . . for you . . . so, if you'll come here . . .you'll find me.'**

**These mystifying words were somewhat eased by the next solemnly sweet words, its every nuance comforting and reassuring.**

'**I promise.'**

**Suddenly the beach was gone and a collection of intense images slammed her mind.**

**Two almost identical feathers, one soaked in blood the other savagely rent almost in halves**

**A dancing doll and a lump of something**

**A never ending circle with a small lump, two dark, glistening slitted eyes stare back in a lust filled, insane rage, as is began to hungrily consume itself**

**The piercing cry of a hawk**

**A pale eyed bird acting the broken wing ploy, about to be lunged on by a hungry predator**

**The stench of encaged humanity, a screaming faceless figure chained to a walls like so many of the others, unique only in its resistance**

**Sand, lots and lots of sand**

**A shadowy enclave of menacing figures gathered around a cowering figure**

**The terrifyingly hungry grin of an animal with teeth as big as her, its fetid breath swirling around her. Several wailing things attached to it. It began to get closer and closer, its wild red eyes changing to a intense blue, ones filled with a terrible, all consuming hunger**

Somewhere a girl woke up in a cold sweat, her sheets entangled around her kimono clad body. Long lashes fluttered like banners in the wind as she tried to calm down her rapid breathing, her breath rasping in the deep silence of the house at irregulars rhythms to the deep breaths of other sleepers. Her slender body was shuddering as she struggled to keep her rising tears and panic down. She couldn't banish the last thought from her mind. _'What was that,' _A shudder ran through her body as the memory of its hot breath made all the hairs on the back of her neck rise. _'Thing?' _She smoothed down her sleek dark hair with shaking fingers as she collected her thoughts.

'_From the beginning, I was at the ocean. But I've never been so why does it seem so familiar? It seemed so real, the sand, the water, the smell that father described, it feels like I actually went there.' _She pondered for a few more moments before blushing like a pervert in a bath house. _'And that person, I can't remember his face but he was so bold!' _She squeezed her pillow hard at the very though of it. _'Only one person I know is like that . . .' _Her eyes widened and she unconsciously raised a hand to her mouth. 'O_h kami-sama.'_

Her thoughts were interrupted by a muffled sleep laden voice, which grew more and more awake with each word. 'Hn'ta-sama? Nzz mat'r? Zzzting wr-oooong?' The deep voice said with a deep yawn, two eyes snapping open in the darkness, she shook her head violently as she hurriedly tried to soothe the waker. She smiled shakily, aware that the person could see her and the fact that the person sounded very cute all sleepy and grizzling.

'Its fine, go back to sleep.'

'Are you sure?' The voice's owner was fully alert now and she could see the gleam of a kunai in the darkness, she saw blurry movement as the figure began to climb out of his futon. He began to walk around her sparsely decorated room with its single futon, desk, various drawers and a comfy looking couch, searching every corner. She could sense that he had gotten serious from the agitated chakra flow in his body.

'Just a bad dream, nothing to worry about.' She reached out a hand to gently touch his arm. He looked down on her his face worried and hesitant as he struggled between the urges to follow her request and the urge to continue with his search. He paused a look of concern on his face.

'If you're sure.'

'Mmm, thank you for being concerned.'

'Do you want to talk about it?'

'No, its fine. Good night.'

'Back to bed then, sweet dreams, Hinata-sama.'

'You too, Neji nii-san.'

Neji walked back to his futon, closing the door behind him. Hinata lay back down on her futon and tried to get back to sleep. A few moments later she checked with her Byakugan to confirm the fact that her elder cousin was sleeping, he looked peaceful with the normally serious look on his face smoothed out, although he slept on his back with his hands folded on his chest his breathing deep and regular.

She closed her eyes trying to reach the sweet oblivion of sleep, unfortunately for her it would be quite some time before she succeeded, kept awake by her the thoughts running rampant in her mind.

'!'

Elsewhere a blonde haired boy was shocked awake by his dreams as well. He sat up, the look that any hastily woken person carried on his face, a huge jaw stretching yawn seemed to split his face in half as he blinked owlishly, rubbing his eyes with one hand. Two equally strong urges were fighting mighty inside him, the urge to get a good nights sleep, or what was left of it from the shockingly bright glare of the alarm clock bleeping 4.30, snuggled into the crisp clean sheets of his warm futon and a niggling urge to visit the bathroom, somewhat annoyed the second urge won out. He pushed heavy arm of his sensei off his chest, who responded with a grunt rolling over and mumbling something about 'boobies', his hands twitched and his mouth twisted into a lecherous grin.

The boy began to stumble to the bathroom, winching as his feet his the cold tiles making him wish he had packed slippers or something, a few moments later after relieving himself he found the willpower to move in the general direction of the mirror. He washed his hands before gathering a handful of water, splashing his face and most of the accompanying vicinity. He vaguely wanted to clean up the spotless tiles but it was still too early he reminded himself, maybe for brighter hours when normal people were awake.

He looked into the mirror and was freaked out by the face staring back at him, his normally messy hair was even worse today looking like he had a yellow hedgehog stuck on his head, his blood shot eyes were ringed with thick blue-purple shadows and the look on his face reminded him of the old Hokage when he was caught pranking someone, his face scrunched up and a frown twisting his mouth downwards. Or, he noticed with a grimace, Orochimaru, from the harsh training his normally tanned face has acquired a greyish pallor and not the healthy kind of pale either, his normal clear skin looked like the underside of a fish and his face looked like a skeletal form of itself all cheekbones and hair.

'_I look like crap, I could beat Gaara out in lack of sleep.' _He thought to himself idly as he rubbed the dark circles hoping to restore some sense of colour into his face. While Jiraiya wasn't what anyone would call a demanding taskmaster, on the rare occasions he did pull his act together Naruto would train his arse off and love every minute of it. With a grimace he turned and glared at his sensei, although more often that not Jiraiya would show him something and walk off to do some 'research', leaving him to work out whatever he had done on his own.

Naruto gave a rueful smile, not that he didn't work all the harder for that, while it wasn't easy he had started to pick things up a lot quicker and had started into an intense working ethic, not as bad as Fuzzy brows though. Self discipline was an important thing and even now with all his reconnaissance work Jiraiya still found time now and again to have a hard workout with his student.

He change into his normal clothes, tossing his pyjamas onto his travelling bag, sack, thing, he smiled at the bag. It had deteriorated over the years from the sturdy ANBU issue gear it was to this worn, threadbare excuse of a bag, he was going to miss it when it broke. They had gone through some good and bad times, surviving things normal shinobi wouldn't even think of, Gaara, missing nin, natural disasters, an invasion from the Hidden Cloud and that time when all of Konoha's ramen supplies had been called back from infected wheat supplies.

Only one other thing had survived that long with him, he smiled and with a practised gesture flipped his forehead protector into his hand, the thick black cloth sliding over his fingers. He shook his head, glad for his genes that he was blessed with spring back hair, that is hair that resisted all and any change, then tied it around his head.

Naruto knelt down as he began to tie his sandals on, wondering if he should start training so early. He sighed, the extra practise wouldn't do him any harm even though they had a long day ahead of them with a package to collect for the old hag then the trek back to Konoha. But first, he smiled as his stomach snarled at him, breakfast. He looked back at his sensei who was happily snoring away, his hands twitching away in their perverted dreams, Jiraiya would be footing the bill. Naruto stifled a snigger, showed the old pervert right for scamming him of some much money over the years.

The fox left the hotel room with a spring in his steps, determined to eat so much he would barf then eat again then barf once more. He barely remembered the ominous dream that had woken him up in the first place.

A/N- I thought this was more interesting than the first version., it was an actually parody too!. . . please review and all the people who did review the first time, please review again and get a wallpaper!


	2. Aren't you popular?

BMR13- Hello, back with another update. This one was done for a while, I just waited for the first chapter to disappear off the first page cause I wanted time for the third one to be written.

Also you know how some people enjoy games more that religion? And some overzealous people spot religious figures in baked goods? I recently spotted the Crescent Island map from FF5 . . . in a waffle, I still have the picture if anyone wants it.

Dedicated to JAJapster for being so totally awesome yeah?

Disclaimer- I do not own Naruto, cause if I did, Itachi would be my Akatsuki partner and Kisame would be Zetsu's partner or something then people would write Ita/BMR13 fics . . . Ignore me I'm just happy that exam block is over, I also don't own Neon Genesis Evangelion or this parody kinda not really, of FF6 and Excel Saga.

I am so pissed from my answer for the last bio question, it was a friggin golgi apparatus not a freakin ribosome! THERE ARE NO BLACK DOTS ON A GOLGI APPARATUS! screams goes on Godzilla style rampage

Hinata yawned as she stretched cat like, pushing away the stack of mission reports. She began to pack away the ever present stack of paperwork making sure not to disturb her still sleeping cousin. Neji was an early riser often getting up for sunrise training with her father but every once in a while he slept in like today.

She smiled to herself as she watched her cousin sleep, he looked so peaceful. _'. . . at least he's getting some sleep.' _She thought folding away her futon, a slight frown creasing her brow. She had analysed the dream backwards, forwards, inside out if that were possible, pulling out all stops as she consulted dream guides, fortunes, psychological texts trying to figure out what the dream had been about and yet, she kept arriving at the same niggling answer.

'_Naruto-kun.' _

Somewhere outside of Konoha's city limits.

Naruto sneezed. He rubbed his nose thoughtfully and wondered who was thinking about him. A lecherous snigger caught his attention, his eyebrow twitched upwards as he bent down to grab a rock. Almost casually he threw the rock behind him, hitting his drooling sensei on the head. A bellow of anger roared out of the white haired man before he realised he had broken the Golden Rule of peeping, don't get caught, ever.

Enraged screams were heard as the women he was spying on caught sight of the infamous Pervert Hermit. Narrowly avoiding being lynched by a mob of women in various states of undress, thanks to a handy smoke bomb, Jiraiya ran as fast as he could on his heavy iron sandals leaving sizeable dents in his wake. Naruto yawned sleepily, calling to the dust clouds of his long gone sensei.

'Hey old man, wait up.'

Back in Konoha,

A blush spread across her head and her frown broke replaced by the smile that always appeared on her face when he was mentioned. Shaking her head, she changed out of her sleeping kimono and into her daily clothes, leaving aside the itchy Jounin vest. She looked longingly outside before glancing at her still remaining paperwork. _'Hmmm, paperwork or a day off? Hokage-sama wants that paperwork soon but I **have **been working all night . . .' _She mused, suddenly a very Naruto-like grin appeared on her face as she vaulted out of the window, she grabbed her forehead protector and her wallet before she hit the ground with a soft thump.

Hinata broke into a light run as she avoided the Hyuuga Main house guards, they were all very nice people but they were always very protective of her making her stop and explain something multiple times before sending her away with a guard to follow her.

Without looking she counted the birds in the sky, noticing the gorgeous shade of periwinkle blue it was today, shading to palest cerulean spotted with absurdly fluffy white clouds. _'Hmmm four birds, a boy or a birth how unusual. I can't stop thinking about him.' _

As always everything reminded her of Naruto, the sky so much like his beautiful eyes, the sunflowers the same colour and funnily enough she thought with a grin, shape, as his spiky, blonde hair, the orange and black traffic cones reminding her of the brightness of his often clashing clothing, the stony visage of Yondaime-sama like the line of his chiselled jaw. She sighed, she had Naruto on the brain.

She blushed. _'Its not like we would ever go out, he's so far out of my league,' _Hinata gave a wry half smile, _'Or rather I'm out of his league.' _She was placed with a pair of annoying problems.

Her family would never allow it, ever. If they were the last two people in the whole Ninja Nations, her family would rise from the grave rather than have her even think of repopulating Konoha with him.

Despite her boundless love for Naruto, on par with Sakura's love of Sasuke and Naruto's love of ramen, he was completely oblivious of her. Oblivious with a capital O, he thought of her as a genderless friend rather than an actual girl. A girl who liked him. A girl who liked ramen and could cook. A girl who liked cleaning up after people. A **real **girl with a pretty face, breasts, a nice body and a personal fortune taking on a Sannin's and winning. Not that Naruto even cared.

'_I guess it's not that bad.' _ She thought with a little smile. Her father would strongly disagree to say the least. For the last three generations, the Hyuuga family had intermarried or were married off to different clans solidifying their own power as well as Konoha's. While it wasn't unheard of for them to marry different people outside of the clan they were often high ranking officials and such. The previous generation had managed to thicken the concentration of Hyuuga blood quite considerably, like Neji's mother and father both extremely distant cousins who had produced a son with a genius the likes of which the clan had never seen before.

Not that she was likely to marry her cousin, for one thing they were way too closely related with their fathers being identical twin brothers. Sharing the exact same DNA, it was like Neji and Hinata were actually half siblings rather than cousins. The second thing was it was way too creepy to consider her cousin dating someone, let alone naked . . . getting the nasty on . . . with her. Hinata shuddered.

Chances were with lessening pressure upon her from her family as well as the recent peace amongst the Hidden Villages, she wouldn't have to marry someone from a different country, instead marrying someone from one of the nearer clans. That was fine with her family, the Inuzukas, Akimichis, Aburames and even at a stretch the Naras were all respectable ninja families. Not that Kiba, Chouji, Shino or Shikamaru were bad choices.

Kiba was a really sweet guy under that jerkish exterior and kinda cute in a scruffy way with his constantly ruffled brown hair and cute half smile which twisted up the left side of his mouth.

Chouji was one of the nicest guys she had ever met and he was, despite all appearances, quite strong morally and physically, he also had an easy self acceptance of himself that she envied as well as all this he was a reliable guy and he cooked well too.

Her team mate, Shino was courteous and always nice to her. He was almost romantically chivalrous constantly helping her whenever he had the chance. He was handsome in a way with a chiselled jaw and nice bone structure. She would have to say his main points were his brilliance as a bug user as well as his incredibly rich, sexy smooth voice.

Shikamaru was . . . well she didn't really know him but he seemed easy going enough and besides he had a thing for the kuniochi ambassador of the Hidden Sand, Temari-san.

In her eyes they didn't match up to her Naruto-kun. He was everything she had ever wanted or admired in a person, sweet, kind, honourable, cute, strong willed and a hard working shinobi with a never give up attitude but he was also someone you wouldn't want to bring home to meet your family. In addition to all his good attributes, he was loud, annoying, obnoxious, perverted, was as dumb as a rock and had the worst personal habits and table manners she had ever seen. Like fairy floss, he was better in small doses.

Although her case wasn't completely hopeless, she had once gone on something resembling a date with him. A few years ago they had been talking about something random when suddenly like one of the Hokage's mercurial mood swings the topic has swapped to food, ramen to be precise. She had accidentally revealed, while poking her fingers together in that cute little habit of hers, that she had never ever had Ichiraku's famous chicken ramen. Naruto, who as always was slightly distracted, turned to her his mouth gaping like a fishes then he had fainted.

Upon regaining conscious by some of the Curry of Life, handily given to her by Lee as he sprinted by with his daily five hundred laps of inner city Konoha, he had asked her out to lunch the next day. He had then left behind him a scrape of paper with his phone number, muttering something about her being a 'poor deprived soul' as well a very red, very happy Hinata.

The next day Hinata had been there precisely at noon, dressed in a white, bell sleeved shirt combined with a cute black and red flower printed skirt, which showed a daring hint of cleavage as well as a good five or so centimetres of creamy white thigh above the knee. She had sat down on one of the stools and spent her time waiting for Naruto, straightening out her shockingly short skirt and looking around with her Byakugan.

It was an hour or so later when Naruto arrived late with a bunch of sadly wilted flowers she recognised from her garden, melted chocolates that were made to look like cute animals but now resembled decomposing road kill and an extremely cute bashful grin on his face. He had apologised with his trademark cheeky grin and sat down talking a mile an hour as he asked her how she was, that she looked nice and if she was feeling hot with those sleeves on, all in one breath as he ordered for the pair of them.

The rest of their date had been her listening to him talk in between slurps of his chicken ramen, he had stopped once, turning to give her an intense look, asking her if he was talking too much. She remembered having blushed and muttered something along the lines of 'I like h-hearing you talk Na-naruto-kun.' Then he had had laughed after giving her a quizzical glance, saying that his team mates constantly complained about how loud he was.

After Naruto gallantly payed for both their meals, making a sad face, as his pouch Gama-chan went from a satisfying bulge to a disheartening flatness. He had then walked her home, talking all the time about his plans for the future. At the Hyuuga gates he had asked her if she had a good time and she had nodded shyly. Naruto gave a flashing grin replying that they should do it again sometime, he then leaned forwards for a slight brush against her cheek before walking off, waving behind him with an adorable grin.

Hinata had blinked twice before walking inside her house in a daze, she had made it up to her room before flopping onto her futon with her pillow in her arms, holding it in a death grip, she had screamed like a fangirl. Much to her embarrassment her cousin and father had come running kunai drawn and Byakugan activated, at the sight of her in her modest state of dress, or scintillating undress in Hyuuga fashion she promptly grounded after an intense interrogation session.

She smiled as she remembered the pressed flowers she had kept in her dairy next to her framed pictures of the Rookie Nine, Naruto's team closest to her bed of course. He had looked cutely angry in the picture glaring at Sasuke, standing next to Sakura who looked ecstatic at standing in such proximity to her crush and Sasuke who was looked pissed with Kakashi-sensei's hands ruffled both Sasuke's and Naruto's hair.

The dark haired Hyuuga continued walking wondering if there was anyone living that would fit her families high standards. She knew Neji had a grudging admiration for Naruto, thanks to Naruto's narrow defeat of him at the Chuunin exams but he probably wouldn't want him as a cousin in law.

Her father vaguely knew Naruto-kun existed, a major compliment since he didn't know anyone her age except other clan scions and Neji, because he was now on speaking terms with his nephew but he would probably kill Naruto-kun if he knew that he had kissed her. That was probably nothing compared to what Neji would do though.

She froze as she finally thought of someone who would pass her families ideals with flying colours, making her father extremely happy and her cousin . . . wait she could leave Neji's approval out of any relationship. He would be happier if she was a nun shuttered away in some far off corner of Konoha, had some horribly disfiguring disease likes syphilis or was attracted to girls rather than date a boy, especially Naruto.

'Uchiha Sasuke.'

She whispered aloud before shuddering

Somewhere on the outskirts of Konoha,

Uchiha Sasuke sneezed in an incredibly sexy way, a way that wanted you to run over and beg to be his tissue, in the midst of whittling down a log to sawdust with his snazzy improved Shishi Rendan. Landing on the floor with a fluid grace he turned in the general direction of Konoha, his gorgeously silky hair catching and reflecting the filtering sunlight like a clichéd beautiful person. A look of annoyance crossed his handsome face.

'Tch, stupid fangirls.'

Back in Konoha, still in the Hyuuga house **_(A/N, big isn't it?)_**

Hinata bit her lip, it wasn't as if she didn't like Sasuke-san he was very handsome in a tall, dark, broody way, he was the rookie of the year, was of the famous Uchiha line and he had a personal fortune rivalling the Hidden Leaf's military budget. Nevertheless she didn't care, the white eyed Hyuuga had only one boy on her mind and that was Naruto the blue eyed love of her life. Besides if the rumours were true Sasuke didn't like girls anyway.

Somewhere outside of Konoha,

For the second time that day Uchiha Sasuke's practise was disturbed. He once again gave a mighty sneeze making all the fangirls in Konoha reach out automatically for a tissue to have the honour of pampering their beloved idol. Sasuke flipped up and over the training equipment landing perfectly in an Iron Fist form, after sensing no danger he crossed his arms into his 'too cool' brood and glared once again in Konoha's direction.

'Freakin' yaoi fangirls.'

Back in the Hyuuga house, almost out don't freak out!

Hinata sighed as she closed the gate behind her, after walking easily ten times the distance it would take to cross the open (eagle watched, an ant could fart and they would notice it) Hyuuga courtyard, she has finally gotten out and she was looking forward to getting a good breakfast in the city when.

'Hinata,' The white eyed Hyuuga froze as a deep, supremely neutral voice with harmonising melodies of superiority and good natured grouchiness echoed behind her. There was only one person who could speak like that and not use an honorific, she turned and bowed, avoiding his stare like Naruto with a D rank mission involving baby sitting and shopping.

'Good morning, F-father.'

'What are you doing up so early Hinata?' Her father asked in his smooth voice padding softly up to where she was standing, a slight frown on his still beautiful face.

As hard as it was for any child to believe, there was once a time when their parents was young, beautiful and horny. This was no exception with Hinata's father Hiashi, tall, still fit with a musculature of a man half his age, with his face still handsome even after all the stressful years of being a Jounin as well as the leader of his clan if anything his serenity and maturity increasing rather than decreasing the beauty of his face but even with all this Hiashi was now a dad and even that couldn't stop the inevitable.

Hiashi now had almost nil fashion sense, lacking in the hair department in all the areas that count while growing in an abundance in that areas that are just plain weird, wearing black socks with thongs in the fashion of all men around the world regardless of race or colour, couldn't cook to save his life 'spicing' (cough screwing cough) up recipes with weird little additions, making dad jokes and ranting about the good old days, which as a Hyuuga Jounin he had lots of, to the extent that even his daughters tried to sneak away.

Thankfully he was also a Hyuuga meaning he would forever have his beautiful hair, fine, silken soft, with a lustre any girl would be jealous of and straighter than Kiba was. In addition to this he was lucky enough that Hyuuga fashion hadn't changed since the founding of the Hidden Leaf so no one could see his thongs anyway. Hiashi also got away with his dad jokes and his rant sessions because one:

No one knew the difference between when he was joking and when he wasn't

Even though he was a mellow old man he was still a Hyuuga, as seen in the case of his nephew Neji, all Hyuugas had a temper under that serene visage and Hiashi was no exception. He could still Kaiten your arse into the middle of last week without breaking into a sweat

She was shaken out of her thoughts by her father's intensely growing silence. She looked up and then back down unsuccessfully, his eyes had caught her like a deer in the headlight and she was now snared. A tiny, naughty looking, chibi Hinata popped up over her shoulder, shiny black leather wrapped around its curvaceous body, leathery bat wings fluttering on its back .It leaned against her face nuzzling her cheek, its seductive voice echoing in her ear. _'Hina-chan, its not like your lying anyway. Its your day off honey and it **will **involve shopping.' _The evil little chibi gave a flirty wink at her older form._ 'What's a little white lie worth anyway?'_

'Um, shopping?'

'Shopping?' One beautifully arched eyebrow rose, his frown lessening a touch although still remaining the Hyuuga stare of 'You are beneath me,'. His normally stoic Hyuuga face changing slightly with curiosity as he looked his daughter up and down, at least she was dressed appropriately these days. Ever since that time with that short black skirt he had to make sure, he hadn't been able to show his face in public for days afterwards.

'Hai.' Hinata's thoughts were racing even thought her face was calm. _'Kami-sama, I hope father believes this little half truth. It is my day off,' _She inwardly screamed._ 'ZOMG! What if father knows I left paperwork behind, he hates slackers.' _Hinata was having a mental version of a heart attack as she babbled on to herself, her face turning a odd shade of purple to her father's concern. Her naughty chibi self sighed and sat down, it was a wonder her bigger self hadn't launched herself into some kind of psychosis from the level of self imposed stress she created. _'OMG, what if Hanabi told him! OMG HOW DID SHE KNOW! Is she like psychic or something? What if she was listening at the door last night, I wasn't exactly quiet last night and-' _Hinata's chibi self bonked her on the head, checking it's nails with an air of supreme confidence as her stiletto boots knocked against her own shoulder. _'Calm down, you'll pop out into Byakugan or something. You did the paperwork didn't you?'_

'_Yes, but.'_

'_But what? You did it didn't you and the paperwork isn't due to later this afternoon. Hanabi is on a mission with her team mates now anyway.'_

'_Oh right, thank you very much.'_

'_Don't mention it gorgeous.'_

'For what?' Hiashi asked as he watched the purple fade from her face, this time the female Hyuuga paled and sweat started to drip down her back in torrents. She mentally screamed, her temptation chibi stood up waving its leather clad arms up and down. _'Wow calm down honey! Repeat after me. Strawberries.'_

'Strawberries.'

'We have some at home.' Hiashi's frown deepened, she mentally gave a little meep wishing for a hole to disappear into, not that that would do anything, damn Byakugan. Her evil chibi self sighed, this was way too easy she would have to do something more interesting later. _'Something like saying welcome back to Sasuke's conscience_._'_ The gorgeous evil chibi brightened, flapping her wings, actually that wasn't a bad idea, Sasuke's conscience was like Neji except weak willed. Although unlike his bigger ego, Sasuke's conscience wasn't used to girl attention so when a certain leather clad sm3xi Hyuuga popped up . . . she sniggered evilly before getting back to the task at hand.

'_I need to handpick them for a cake I'm going to make.'_

'I need to handpick them for a cake I'm going to make.'

'Okay,' Hiashi relaxed visibly. 'You weren't going out to meet your boyfriend? A scarier frown normally reserved for Uchihas appeared on his face , 'I'm going to kick your arse, Uchiha scum.' Although genius Hyuuga he was, it had been revised to the more appropriate, 'Date before the age of thirty and you are grounded young lady.'

'No.' Her chibi self gave a throaty chuckle. _'Cute little Foxy is supposed to be coming back from his mission today and that gorgeous hunk of an avenger is coming back from training soon. Pwoar.' _Hinata stopped herself from blushing by thinking of unsexy things like granny undies, paperwork, Jiraiya possibly even a combination of all three.

Hiashi gave what passed as a smile for a male Hyuuga from the sneeringly all purpose 'I'm so much better than you stop talking,' to a more tolerable 'You can lick the goo off my expensive sandals, that could feed your family for a year.' Possibly even the 'You're amusing for someone so poor.' Then again that was pushing it. 'You know what would happen if I caught a boy with my sweet daughter don't you?'

The pale eyed Hyuuga gulped even her chibi looked slightly anxious. 'What would you do f-father?'

'I would eat their liver.' Hiashi burst out laughing.

'Ha ha, that's f-funny father.'

Hiashi patted her on the head, still chuckling, 'Who said I was kidding? Have fun Hinata, be back before lunch there's an important clan meeting today.'

Hinata stood there gaping like a stunned fish as Hiashi walked back inside the grounds. Her chibi self took over her body, calling after her father. 'That was a joke rather father?'

He only gave an enigmatic smile before closing the gates behind him. The Hyuuga heiress and her fearless chibi were left speechless as she watched her father's retreating figure.

Somewhere in the Hidden Sound,

'But Orochimaru-sama, what is it exactly that you want Hyuuga Hinata of the Main house?' Kabuto said with a look of confusion on his face. 'As we saw during the Chuunin exam, her cousin Hyuuga Neji from the Branch house is stronger by far.'

Orochimaru gave a low, almost purring chuckle as Kabuto began to remove the bandages from his face. 'Because Kabuto-kun,' He began with tantalising slowness, 'She can give me the secret to immortality and you Kabuto-kun will be the one to deliver her to me.'

Kimimaro's hand slipped at the last statement, his face slipping into a sneer before the mask of neutrality froze over once more.

Orochimaru pouted like an eight year old girl and spoke like the dangerous S rank missing nin he was. 'Kimimaro-kuuuun, you smudged my eye liner . . . '

Kimimaro gasped dramatically, 'I AM SO SORRY MASTER! PLEASE FORGIVE ME!'

Kabuto frowned. _'More work. I should ask for a holiday or something.' _He tried to ignore the white haired ninja who had prostrated himself on the floor and was writhing and whimpering in a most pathetic fashion. _'Kami-sama, he's pathetic was I really like that so many years ago? I wasn't that bad was I? Geez, if Orochimaru said jump Kimimaro would ask "how high?' _ He was suddenly snapped out of his thoughts as a pair of golden eyes stared back at him with an expectant air, the medic nin sighed.

'Orochimaru-sama how are you going to do that?'

As if on cue Orochimaru began his to chuckle manically.

'MWHA HA HA HA! Don't you understand Kabuto-kun? But holding her under my brilliant sleep jutsu, she will be forever young! Just like that Rapunzel girl and that 'Sleeping Beauty'. It has been proven time and time again, Kabuto-kun and with this kinjutsu I made to suck her, now, useless energy. **I **will be forever young! MWHA HA HA! I will have all the jutsus in the world! HA HA HA! I will have Sasuke-kun's body! HA HA HA! I will be the ultimate Pokemon master! HA HA HA! I will have the secret to how long Spam and Twinkies live! HA HA HA! **AND** I have found the cheaper alternative to useless fossil fuels as she will a renewable source of energy! MWHA HA HA HA HA!

Kabuto rolled his eyes, if the thin line between insanity and genius was a revolving door Orochimaru was running around in circles and loving every second of it. He often became particularly lucid when his tolerance to drugs were getting high, another sigh escaped from the over worked medic nin's lips. _'Great more work.'_

Orochimaru stopped mid laugh, a frown turning his lipless mouth upside down. 'But there's always a catch, isn't there Kimimaro?'

The greened eyed Kagura looked up from the arm of Orochimaru's crudely hewn stone chair, his fanatical eyes alight with an almost religious fervour. It was his time, his time to suck arse like it had never been sucked before. 'Your plans are foolproof Orochimaru-sama!

If anything Kimimaro's vomit inducing arse kissing didn't cheer the snake sannin up instead he seemed to become more depressed. 'There's that shining prince to worry about,' He murmured crossing his long legs, almost kicking Kimimaro in the process.

Kabuto's sixth sense kicked in as his nose began to twitch, he could sense the work approaching.

Orochimaru brightened visibly as an idea entered his mind. 'Kabuto-kun! Take Kimimaro with you to Konoha and make sure you get the Hyuuga girl! If you see Itachi send him my love and offer him a place at my side for the approaching apocalypse! With his beauty and my brains, we will rule the world! MWHA HA HA!' The insanely brilliant or brilliantly insane whichever you preferred, the snake man began to laugh insanely and loudly, he lifted a cocked left pinkie to the corner of his mouth.

Kabuto looked over at Kimmimaru, he was staring adoringly at Orochimaru. He looked over at the Sound Four they were sitting around looking bored. Kidoumaru was playing cat's cradle with chakra strands, Jiroubou was making a pyramid out of 3D Doritos, Sakon and Ukon were playing noughts and crosses. Ukon was winning, he was using the fool-proof strategy of corner, corner, block, two way win. Sakon was looking confused as he kept losing. Tayuya was yelling something in the corner about 'losing' in Solitaire.

Orochimaru stopped laughing and glared around the room before hissing in his low voice. 'Why am I the only one laughing?'

Everyone looked up from their various forms of amusement and with the ease of long practise began to laugh manically but not with the same level of enthusiasm that Kimimaro possessed.

Orochimaru lifted his arms and began to sway from side to side, his hips rocking in the opposite direction to his arms. Inspired Kimimaro did so as well only to be smashed against the wall by his master's fist. The snake sannin sneered, 'Only I may dance.' He turned back around and continued his dance humming a melody only he could hear.

Kabuto sighed, rubbing at his temple. _'Its hard being the only sane one.'_

Back in Konoha's marketplace,

Neji looked down and gave his family's trademark frown, the famous swoon inducing 'I am better than everyone 'cause I'm a Hyuuga, except Main House . . . in theory.'

'So where are you going again Hinata-sama?'

Hinata gulped, her evil temptation half had run off earlier for some unnamed errand.

Somewhere, else

Sasuke's conscience sighed, pulling off his shirt and climbing onto his Uchiha bedspread. It had been a long mission and it was good to be back in the home, the gorgeous chibi rolled over and moved against something warm, soft and curvy . . . which giggled.

The chibi looked up startled he grabbed at a pillow to cover his hawt half n33kid body. 'What are you doing here!' He said pointing to Hinata's temptation, who was sitting up, yawning in a very seductively cute 'Don't you wanna cuddle me' way, her glossy hair spilling all over her bare shoulders and onto long, toned, shapely legs he realised with a blush.

Sexy music started to play in the background as she leaned closer, the bedspread fell dangerously far from her chest and Sasuke's chibi tried in vain to keep his eyes on her face and not on the full curves of her breasts. 'Wanna see what's under the sheet?' She whispered in his ear, fluttering her long lashes at him.

The Uchiha leaned closer nodding eagerly, suddenly the temptation ripped the sheet away. The evil chibi burst out into laughter as she revealed what she had underneath, a low cut boob tube and short shorts. 'You should have seen your face you pervert!' She stopped and began to poke him, the Uchiha had fainted dead away with an ecstatic look of pure perverted enjoyment on his grinning face, a trickle of blood running down his nostril. 'Oh crap,' She pouted, making an adorable face. 'It was just a joke!'

Back in Konoha,

Hinata stood still thinking what she could possibly tell her brilliant, lie detector cousin, twisting a heavy weight around her right wrist before looking down and realising what it was. 'I went to buy strawberries.'

'Only strawberries?' Her cousin asked, his eyebrow rising in a gesture much like her father's. He rocked back on his heels looking down sternly at his cousin.

'Yes.' Hinata said, trying to keep her face calm under Neji's death stare.

'So you're not going to see Naruto?'

'What he's back in t-town, I mean,' Hinata tried to keep calm and act nonchalant, leaning against the wall. 'No.'

'You're lying to me Hinata-sama.' Neji frowned, the frown changed to 'I'm disappointed and am going to kill Naruto' frown, that's right Neji had created his own frown just for Naruto and Hinata, he was quite proud of himself, he was a genius after all.

'H-how did you know?' Hinata said, a dark red blush appearing on her face, she twirled the bag of strawberries as she avoided his glance.

Neji sighed, his frown fading to 'You're not worthy of being a Hyuuga,' frown that he reserved for Main House members. 'You haven't looked me in the eye once, although your stutter has improved quite a lot Hinata-sama you only completely stop stuttering when you lie as well as that you paused before every sentence stopping to look up and to your left as you sought a viable lie. I can read you like a book, Hinata-sama.'

Hinata reached out and grabbed her cousin's hand, her eyes looking up at him beseechingly her lower lip shaking. 'Please don't tell anyone Neji-nii-san.'

Neji's gaze softened, to 'Only cause I love you so much,' which was very rarely seen, it changed to a 'If he breaks your heart . . .' frown which promised much pain to the heart breaker and had been seen by many over the years, by many men who wanted a female Hyuuga. It was practically an heirloom it was seen almost as often seen as the infamous Uchiha, 'Too cool for you' stare and both their houses brooding pose, perfected by Hizashi and Itachi, t3h kri3g prodigies of course.

'If he breaks your heart, I break his legs.' He said in a perfectly calm voice.

'Neji-nii-san!'

Neji gave her a look and she stopped, this was probably the closest to acceptance she was going to get from Neji. Her cousin left, a dark brooding aura emitting from his body he stalked out of the area and she watched him leave, even out of her immediate sight she could still track him from his chakra and the legions of swooning fangirls he left behind.

Hinata continued on through the marketplace, her thoughts still on her crush when she bumped into a certain someone. She blinked rapidly as a very warm, muscular, nice smelling chest blocked her way, she felt calloused hands on her arms and she looked up from under her lashes to see who it was.

First thoughts were, _'Holy crap, who the hell am I going to run into next, Orochimaru?' _

Sound village again ,

Orochimaru sneezed loudly, splattering a fawning Kimimaro all over his previously spotless white kimono. He looked around in slight evil puzzlement before calling out gleefully. 'Kabuto, break out the Soothers and honey! I have a cold!'

Kabuto sighed, he had forgotten to stock up on his last trip to the outside so now he had to made find a substitute for the black current cough lollies that Orochimaru loved. His long fingers settled on a packet of hard boiled sweets. _'That'll do, thank Kami-sama for the placebo effect, besides.' _Kabuto thought evilly, chuckling, _'I can always blame Kimimaro for eating the last of them.'_

Hinata bowed quickly as she drew back from the close, she realised blushing red, embrace. She looked back into the black eyes that so many women had fallen for. 'I'm sorry for b-bumping into you like that S-sasuke-san!'

'Its fine, Hinata-san.' The deep, sexy voice said, Sasuke gave a half smirk at the Hyuuga's fumbling attempts of an apology, keeping his eyes firmly on her bouncing . . . . head. He had always thought she was kinda hot in that forbidden, wallflower way with her hidden knockout body, her gorgeous eyes and that shyly enticing smile.

Suddenly temptation Sasuke popped up on his shoulder to watch this interesting conversation that screamed sexual tension and awkward moments all around, it sniggered lecherously and leaned back comfortably, nestled against its ego's neck surrounded by its blue kimono. She had fallen silent looking up at him expectantly, he gave his heartbreaking smirk his voice slightly teasing. 'So who's the lucky guy?'

_Mental screaming 'How does everyone know I'm looking for Naruto! Did I write it on my forehead or something!' _Hinata snuck a look behind her in the stall of mirrors, one of the good points of her blood limit she could see the back of head by using a light application of chakra, don't ask how that worked, although it sure came in handy when she had to do the zipper on the back of her dress. _'Nope, so how does he know? Wait, he's ANBU but why would they care?' _

At her confused and alarmed look, Sasuke smiled all the more, gaining them lustful and downright angry stares from the women and certain men around them. The temptation laughed again, his normal sized form didn't even need any prompting to be evil, damn he loved his job. The ANBU captain gave a slight chuckle and suddenly she understood.

'_OMG, is Sasuke teasing me? Since when did Sasuke have a sense of humour?' _'Umm, no one really I just went out for a walk this morning.'

'That's too bad.' Sasuke said with a cute twist of his mouth, she blushed at the comment looking away and concentrating on the cabinet of jewellery next to her. He suddenly smelled the mouth watering scent of toasted bread and roasted meat doused in herbs and oil. His temptation half chortled, knowing what his elder half intended. _'Go for it Sasuke!' _'Have you gotten anything to eat this morning?'

Hinata looked up, finally a normal question! From what she knew of Sasuke, he had mellowed out slightly although he was still pretty cold around strange women. Sakura and Ino had gotten over him making everyone a lot happier especially Sasuke, although there was the occasional squabble where they argued on who Sasuke liked best but old habits die hard. He was normally acted normal but that was in the rare moments where they weren't on missions, had training or were around people other than the Rookie Nine barring Neji or Shino, he was normally quite considerate around her and treated her quite warmly with random acts of kindness, for Sasuke at least, teasing her like he did with Naruto.

'No, not yet. Why?'

'Cause I'm fattening you up to eat.' Sasuke said with a perfectly straight face, Hinata looked up. _'Did Sasuke just try to pull a funny?'_ The dark haired Uchiha just smirked again. 'Do you want to get something to eat?'

Hinata looked him in the eye for the second time in their conversation, she wasn't really sure how she was supposed to answer him. She wasn't sure wether to treat this as Sasuke being nice in which she could laugh if off and get a free breakfast or treat it as a serious date-date offer in which she could freak out and run away screaming for Neji. Sasuke was still standing there with a faint smile on his handsome face, leaning against the wall, his eyes fixed on her with a look of amusement. So she opted for the easy way out making sure she vaguely kept eye contact like Neji said.

'Ummm, I would Sasuke-san but I already have plans for this morning.' She said with a wincing look on her face as she clapped her hands together, bowing slightly. 'Maybe some other time?'

Sasuke laughed, his face breaking out into a very cute boyish grin with a light blush on his normally pale cheeks. His temptation half was howling, wiping away tears as it pointed at its bigger half. _'OMG you just got pwned!It was like, SNAP! You got rejected by Hinata!' _Again Hinata was freaked out, her eyes scanning the marketplace to see if anyone else had taken in the lapse in the stoic Uchiha's behaviour. No one seemed to notice, the women and men watching them just seemed insanely jealous that someone could make their idol happy. _'Today is turning out to be weird when does Sasuke ever laugh, is he on drugs?' _

'No its fine.' Sasuke turned around and gave her that finger flick that all guys do over his shoulder. 'Bye Hinata-san.' She watched him stroll coolly away from her, watching with shrouded interest, the way the muscles in his shoulders moved.

Her temptation half popped up on her shoulder breathless and clad in different clothes, what looked suspiciously like an Uchiha shirt and a red pair of short shorts. _'What'd I miss?'_ It panted looking around, her eyes landed on the ANBU captain walking away, it growled and made little raking gestures in the air. _'Pwroar, that Uchiha is gorgeous.'_

It turned and looked up at her bigger half. _'So what happened?' _Hinata bit her lip. _'I think he asked me out and then I brushed him off.' _The temptation was speechless before pulling off her stiletto boots and braining her stupid bigger half on the side of her temple. _'BAKA! What were you thinking!' _It shouted waving its arms around as it's bat wings flapped around. _'I am so out of here!'_

Hinata shook her head and continued on her walk, ignoring the glances she got from all around her. With an angry growl her stomach demanded her to feed its belly which the silver eyed Hyuuga faithfully did walking into the nearest food shop. She looked up for a few seconds noticing the crisp white and red banners and unlit banners proclaiming her and Naruto's favourite eatery- Ichiraku.

With an ease of much practise she pulled herself onto the well worn moss green stools, waiting patiently for the old man to notice her, she looked up and began to eyes off the menu wondering what was good here. Hinata shook her head from side to side, before settling on her decision, ignoring the person who walked in and sat down two seats from her. 'Ummm, I'll have the miso ramen.'

'I'll have the same,' A tired although familiar voice said echoing hers. Hinata looked to her left, surprised for the umpteenth time that morning. The man sitting next to her was slouched over the table, his black cloak hiding his body although she could see his Konoha forehead protector and a glimpse of his orange and black clothing, the man looked over to where she was watching, a bemused expression on his face. Tired blue eyes eyed her blearily, dark shadows on the ashen tanned skin. 'What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?'

'Naruto-kun, you look l-like c-crap!' Hinata said gasping before slamming a hand over her mouth. Although she did love her Naruto and watched him with intensity of a hawk over the years he had never looked this bad, his smooth skin had a nasty looking grey tinge, his hands were shaking slightly she suspected from chakra exhaustion from the lack of his overbearing chakra signature, his face was leaner than usual- although he had lost most of his puppy fat when he had hit fifteen and his features going to sculpted spunkiness he was a lot thinner than he normally was and his eyes, normally sparkly and bright, now dull and sleepy surrounded by thick black circles Naruto looked like he about to collapse into his steaming bowl of ramen any minute.

'Thanks Hinata-chan.' He noted with a hint of sarcasm, he turned back to his bowl. He took a few seconds to mutter a half hearted. 'Itadaikimasu.' Before he snapped his chopsticks perfectly in halves and began to eat.

'So h-how was your mission N-Naruto-kun?'

'Nhhh . . .' Naruto slurped up a spoonful of soup and noodles, chewing slowly before answering her again. 'Okay.'

'Ummm, what was the mission?' There was another awkward silence before Naruto ground out another reply.

'. . . Recon . . .'

'Was it fun?'

'. . . no.' He said, in a drawling 'Are you kidding me?' voice.

'Okay,' Hinata looked down at her ramen, her hands tightly gripping one another in her lap. She bit her lip to stop herself from revealing how much this conversation was killing her, Naruto was never normally this rude. Somehow it was like Sasuke and Naruto had changed bodies and the dark haired ANBU captain was sitting here. She began to rip her napkin into confetti with quick nervous gestures.

'Do you want me to be quiet?'

'Yeah.' Naruto said calmly. The next few minutes were filled with silence besides the slurping of noodles and soup from Naruto, Hinata sat there quietly hiding back tears. The blonde headed ninja lifted his bowl and drained it in one go, before taking out his wallet. Hinata stood up, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her black shirt before she felt her arm being grabbed.

'What do you w-want Naruto-kun?' Hinata said, her voice shuddering slightly.

Naruto stood up, not quite looking her in the eye, his voice softer and remorseful. 'I'm sorry, my missions were absolute shit this week.' He sighed rubbing at his eyes. 'I didn't get any sleep last night and I shouldn't have taken it out on you.' Naruto cocked his head and gave her a puppy dog look. 'Forgive me?'

She gave a slight nod. 'What kept you up last night? You normally sleep like the dead.' Hinata blushed as she realised what she had just said, it was like she was watching him sleep or something, which was like, uber stalker Orochimaru creepy. She resisted the urge to scream as Naruto ran a hand through his thick hair. He was just too cute standing there sleepily blinking from the bright sunlight, he sighed loudly.

'Some weird dream about the beach.'

'Me too!' Naruto looked up at Hinata, who still had a blush on her face. A slow smile spread across his face, he lifted up his old faithful ANBU rucksack hoisting it over his shoulder. A mischievous look came over his face as he smiled down at her.

'I have to deliver the report to Tsunade-obaa-chan right now but do you wanna talk about it over lunch?'

'Sure!' Hinata mentally beat herself up. _'OMG I sound desperate!' _

Naruto turned and gave her his normal, eyes shut smile which sent her heart racing. He leaned forwards and kissed her on the cheek. 'See you then.' He walked off waving behind him cheerfully in a much better mood than he when he had breakfast, wether from the effects of ramen in his wilderness enforced state or the fact that he had a date for lunch, who knows?

This time Hinata ran all the way back home before running to the empty kitchen, climbing into the huge walk in fridge, closing it behind her and screaming her fan girlish head off. She then rushed up to her room and threw open her wardrobe.

'WHAT AM I GOING TO WEAR!'

A/N- Some language features I must point out. As you may have noticed I speak English, I am Australia and yes, America, English and Australia English are all different. For one thing we spell words such as honor (American and English spelling) as honour, in my computer that will turn up correct for other a little squiggly line such as the one that appears on mine for 'honor'.

I will also use the word 'arse' instead of the American terminology of ass, meaning I will use the word 'arsehole' replacing asshole. Also when I mentioned Hiashi had thongs, it means the footwear a.k.a flip flops or whatever they're called. **NOT **the underwear which for a bit of trivia are called G-strings in Oz.

If you where used to the term of thongs as underwear and read that passage strangely, don't be alarmed, even **I'm** confused by how they could see Hiashi wearing black underwear under his white kimono . . . although white is one of those annoying see through colours . . . shudders That was so wrong.

I spent extra time on this fic to write in Sasuke in all in OOC, flirty glory. Love him or hate him, its what you contrary people do anyway.


	3. Attack of the Yaoi Fangirls!

BMR13- Ahhh, easy chapter to write unlike that "other story" I don't have to psych myself out listening to emo music. This is the 3rd rewritten chapter which is still not finished with the original 1st chapter, I'm never going to finish this arc or hell, get to Tsukihime go anytime soon, hopefully I'll get to original chapter four with my favourite partnership popping up.

Dedicated- JAJapster- because he is awesome and reviews this fic whenever I stop procrastinating and get typing

TheHappyStalkerBall- for reviewing and like, yah you get a wallpaper for re-reviewing, just send me your favourite character already.

Mokusei4- They explained the one worded review in a PM after I hassled them, thank you for taking the time to reply back to me :3.

Anon reviewers-

LordNutari- my soul twin, I won't eat his liver cause I have his email address.

sakura- silly, get a fanfic account or give me a place where I can reply to you. Otherwises I get angry and have the urge to eat livers, specifically your liver :3.

Planet no martian- See above, if I didn't hate anon reviewers I would love you. Hate+Love neutral, like FF magic, White + Black Red, don't ask me why its red okay, it's a better colour than grey. So I feel neutral please make an account or log in.

I got flamed for my other fic recently and since this fic is the manifestation of my evil side, I hope the anon. reviewer "Ari" dies and gets AIDS, in that order, it can die from gonorrhoea than getting sodomised by a necrophilia loving, AIDS stricken paedophile.

Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto, cause if I did there would be no filler and chapter 302 wouldn't be so boring. Also I don't own the references to Family Guy, JAJapster's "A Ninja's Guide to High School" and TheHappyStalkerBall's "Pancakes, Dates and more".

One more thing: Beware of pop princesses bearing fans and little boys who look like Gaara.

MELIKEYFRENCHTOASTMELIKEYFRENCHTOAST

'Requesting back up in C76!' The MPC hissed into his communicator. As one of the elite ninjas based in Konoha's peace keeping units he didn't have much trouble in his duties, mostly from the sheer number of ninjas found in the streets as well as off duty ANBU but today was different. Today was market day and what self respecting ninja was caught dead doing their own shopping?

He reached up with a trembling hand to wipe the sweat off his head, this situation had the potential chaos factor unmatched for anything he had done recently. Not the Come Come Paradise riot when the second movie release was delayed which had been started by the revered Hatake Kakashi, the time the Hokage when berserk when she missed her breakfast, hell even the Sand invasion paled in comparison to this. This situation had happened twice before in history and both times had been bad with major damage occurring to the city as well as numerous casualties and fatalities between both sides. _'Damn it, its not going to happen again!' _He thought slamming his fist into the wall behind him.

A crackling of static erupted from his communicator before a cheerful voice answered back. 'Roger that Lieutenant Furiwara, what's the situation?'

'Two males have been sighted! Code 179 Blue!'

'Code 179 Blue?' There were sounds of paper being rustled in the background and Gen sat there patiently, the sweat dripping off his forehead protector as he saw how close the two members were. The two figures were rapidly approaching and it would be a few minutes before they reached one another. He vaguely heard something from the communicator, it sounded like one of the older officers had arrived. There were muffled shouts as he heard the code being repeated then a thumping noise, as what suspiciously sounded like someone being pushed off a chair and hitting a table could be heard.

A choking sound was heard from the speaker and a deeper voice answered, he recognised it as the voice of his mentor and commanding officer Captain Hiramatsu. 'My god, its begun hasn't it? How close are they?' The deep male voice growled. 'Are they showing yet?'

The MPC covered his mouth, the dark haired on approaching from his left was presenting himself like a snake, his eyes were completely dilated and were glaring daggers at the other male. The second one coming from the right had a self confident smirk on his face and was easily moving through the now empty marketplace. 'It's going to happen again, I can't do a thing!' He ripped at his head throwing his forehead protector to the ground. 'It's over Captain! I failed.' He sobbed into the mouthpiece before screaming in a different sounding voice edged with desperation.

'Game over man, game over!'

MELIKEYFRENCHTOASTMELIKEYFRENCHTOAST

At the MPC Station,

Captain Hiramatsu ran his hand through his greying hair, with a shrugging of his broad shoulders he eased his sweat soaked shirt away from his body. He sat still as he listened to his Lieutenant cry like an eight year old girl in front of the whole station. It was silent, as everyone tried to make sense of what the officer was babbling between heaving sobs and loud nose blowings.

More high pitched static and crackle issued out the communicator broken with the sounds of more harsh breathing. 'Get a hold of yourself Lieutenant, there's still time!' There was nothing heard for a long time before a soft thud could be heard. Captain Hiramatsu bashed the radio and yelled into the mouth piece. 'Furiwara! Furiwara! Are you there?' All that was heard was a whimper and two words all the veterans were praying against. The tension in the air was great as everyone strained for the softly spoken words, they could practically feel the iciness seep through the communicator.

'Uchiha.'

'Hyuuga.'

'May God have mercy on his soul.' The Captain crossed himself as the other MPC members began to pull out black armbands, wine and one of his friends began to draft a letter to his soon to be widow.

MELIKEYFRENCHTOASTMELIKEYFRENCHTOAST

Hinata walked down the street almost skipping along in her happiness, a wide smile on her face. She had a good reason to be ecstatic, once again Naruto had asked her out, she was wearing nice clothes- a black top with short sleeves and a white frangipani flower outlined on the left side and a layered grey skirt that was plain but comfortable, strapped silver sandals and matching jewellery that wound its way around her wrist, she smelt nice, having hurriedly washed her already pristine hair two hours ago, and she had her paperwork done and sent off. What could go wrong?

Sudden movement caught her eye, she looked up and a bigger smile lit her face up as she began to wave her hand to the grinning blonde who was walking over. It had only been a few hours but Naruto was already looking a lot better, if she remembered correctly anyway the blonde had trouble getting back to his cheery self in the morning, he wasn't much of a morning person.

His skin was back to a semi-normal version of his tanned skin, his had that twinkle back in his eyes and he was looking happy to see her. Naruto walked over and gave her a lopsided grin. 'We should stop making this a habit Hinata-chan.' She started to giggle at the solemn look on his face as he said it, the blonde smiled back before locking his baby blues on her. 'What do you want to do?'

'Ummm, I don't mind.' !Poof! Temptation Hinata popped up, still dressed in what she recognised now as the new Uchiha jacket combo, a loose navy shirt with a black jacket and the always present Uchiha fan on the back. _'Screw this up Hinata,' _the evil chibi began shaking a fist. She gave Naruto an appraising once over, wrinkling her adorable nose. _'Foxy is okay, in a scruffy way but its heading way too close to dirty. ANBU is so much hotter and smells good too. They both have nice bodies thought, all yummy toned skin and ripply muscled bodies.' _The Uchiha clothed temptation chuckled dirtily._ 'You would know wouldn't you Hinata? Using this blood limit of ours, especially with Naruto's showers on every afternoon at six when we have our walks . . .' _The temptation leered, a smirk on her pretty face.

Hinata glared at her evil self, speaking in an angry Hyuuga growl, a "I am Hyuuga, hear me roar!' frown appearing on her face. _'Leave Naruto alone! At least he has a personality unlike Sasuke who's only concerned with training. You are a shallow pervert, you're worst than Jiraiya-sama!' _ The temptation leaned back wincing, her fingers snapping from left to right.

'_Oooh, meow. This kitty has claws.'_

'_Where's the other one gone?' _Hinata thought raising an eyebrow, looking around her. Normally the kimono clad conscience was hovering over her other shoulder arguing with the leather clad temptation and proving more than a match, which was why Hinata was normally such a good girl. While the temptation was a feminine version of Jiraiya, maybe not as perverted perhaps, but a decent match at least, she was like a stereotyped lead cheerleader completely and utterly sure of herself. The conscience half of her was most likely to be compared with a samurai warrior straight out of a comic book, she was fiercely independent, honourable and was an all round good person to talk to. The white eyed Hyuuga was missing her smaller half like a fat kid missed chocolate at a gym.

The chibi looked warily around her, a suspiciously innocent look on it's face as it shrugged nonchalantly. It turned around and tossed a shaker with a picture of a cartoon chicken dancing in gravy into the nearby bin with an easy throw.

'_I dunno.'_

Hinata shook her head slightly knocking the temptation off her shoulder. 'How are y-you N-Naruto-kun?'

'A bit better than when you asked me at lunch.' He said with a smile, gesturing at his steaming cup of black coffee. 'So what do you wanna do?' He said drinking most of it down in one gulp. She winced, he must have a cast iron throat to manage that, judging from the froth it was still boiling hot and from the way that it coated the sides of the styrofoam cup, it was denser, more noxious and more toxic then engine oil. Any normal person would have thought of sipping it gingerly for the next five to ten minutes or in Hinata's case hour, since she didn't much liked the taste of it. She liked to dilute it down to about 1/16th coffee and the rest being milk and sugar, lucky Naruto was nothing short of extraordinary, she thought with a fond smile at the blonde.

'_Movies!' _The temptation croaked from the ground where she lay twitching, Hinata mentally rolled it out of the way of incoming feet before answering Naruto's question.

'How about the m-movies?'

'Sure, what do you want to watch?'

'_Horror . . . opportunity for mutual petting in darkness! . . . romance! Snuggling central . . .' _The temptation continued weakly, its eyes gleaming with l337 matchmaker skills as it stared up at its bigger half in a creepy way.

'Anything's f-f-fine with me.' She said, idly wondering what had happened to her good side.

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Somewhere else,

A single light bulb swung in the dark room. It was ill lit, a place where children's nightmares began with a strange musty smell came out of everywhere and nowhere, seeping into everything around them. Dark shadows that seemed to have real substance could be seen in the darkness surrounding the shrouded items lining the dusty shelves of the room, pooling into a single point beneath the only set of stairs leading out of the room.

All was quiet when suddenly the door burst open. A white clad figure ran in, she was covered in numerous cuts and grazes, one particularly deep slash ran from her left hip that ended just under her stomach. She panted, looking around, she warily pulled out a kunai as a squad of temptation ANBU's ran in. Her long snowy wings flared around her body, cupping around her shoulders making her look bigger.

'I'm telling you I didn't do it!'

'Tell it to the temptation Hokage, conscience Hyuuga Hinata!' A snake masked ANBU said, pulling out his sword. 'We saw you in the Hokage's room pouring something into her pancakes!'

'I was set up by that temptation bitch! Pancakes suck!' She spat.

Gasps from all around as they looked around in wonder, pancakes ruled. The same ANBU member, pulled out his sword locking it into a ready stance. 'Waffle eating scum!'

'I actually like French toast! French toast with lots of bacon!' The conscience shot back, defiance in her every gesture. Her eyes bulged suddenly as she activated her Byakugan. 'You're not taking me without a fight!'

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A few hours later . . .

'Wow that movie was awesome!' Naruto said with a chuckle.

Hinata smiled as well. 'She's the Man, was q-q-quite a g-g-good movie huh?' _'Better than Come Come Paradise Part 4 . . . or that horror special of House of Wax . . . guh so tacky.'_

'_Horror flicks are for snuggling during screaming scenes or mutual groping! You screwed up!' _Her temptation screamed at her, Hinata mentally picked her up and opened a rip in fabric of time and space throwing her back into the world she came from. The temptation felt into a vortex of black matter and shook her fist. _'I'LL BE BAAAAAACK!'_

Naruto looked away suddenly as his stomach growled loudly, Hinata hid her smile behind her hand as the blonde casually glanced her way to see if she had noticed, a light blush appearing on his face. 'All the p-p-popcorn was a bit m-much.' She looked up at him poking her fingertips together. 'D-do you, I-I-I mean, would y-you mind,' She stuttered as Naruto's intense gaze turned to her, she helplessly gestured towards the park that had just walked through hoping he would notice the ice cream vendor who was walking away.

The blonde gave her a smile. 'Ice cream? Sounds good to me.' He turned giving her a little wave as he did so. 'I'll be back in a few minutes okay?'

Hinata sat down on the bench beside her and began to wait patiently, watching everyone around her go on with their daily business. She had sat idly there for a few minutes watching a family of four picnic together happily, with a wistful longing when suddenly something bumped against her leg and latch on with a desperate strength..

Hinata looked down with surprise, it was a young, teary eyed boy, he was about six and like most kids was all sea green eyes and blood red hair. He looked up at her with the most heart breaking pair of puppy dog eyes before sniffling as tears leaked out of his huge eyes, rolling down his tear streaked face as he gamely tried to wipe them away with the grubby grey scarf he was wearing. 'Onee-chan, I can't find my mum.'

Hinata took one look at that trembling lip and felt in love. She stood up, gently removing his hand from her skirt before she gave him a reassuring smile and wiping the tears off his face. 'I-its okay, I'll help y-you find y-your mother.' He smiled suddenly, his face lighting up as he did so, he was quite a cute little boy once she thought of it. She bit her lip as she peered around the park. 'W-where was the l-last time you saw her and what d-does s-she look like?'

'Over here,' He said beginning to tug her towards a different part of the park with a surprisingly firm grip on her hand. She pulled back slightly a frown on her face.

'I-I need to tell m-my friend that I'm g-g-going for a little while.'

'No.' The little boy said firmly, his voice a little deeper, sounding strangely different, somehow more mature as well as being slightly menacing. She turned and caught a glimpse of his face, he was glaring at her, his eyes a hard shiny green and his lips pulled back into a sneer, completely at odds with the hopeful grin he had on earlier. So suddenly she thought that she had imagined it, the boy gave her an innocent sideways cock of the head, a shy smile once again on his face. 'My mum, is going to be worried.'

'Okay.' The white eyed Hyuuga said in response to the pleading look on those gorgeous blue-green eyes. They continued on in silence as the young boy lead her deeper into the park, she began to look around warily as they entered an abandoned glade. It was intensely quiet, the deep grating silence that was only beaten out by awkward silence, nothing could be heard from the main part of the park and no animals could be heard. She stopped to look around while the boy continued on ahead.

They were in the middle of a shady grove surrounded on all sides by huge oaks still in full growth despite the recent change in season, she looked down as her sandaled feet crunched through the thick piles of golden leaves. Hinata frowned as she looked around, it didn't look like anyone had been here in ages let alone recently.

'Are you s-s-sure that she w-was here?'

Her eyes opened in shock as he disappeared, she began to look around her. _'Where is he?' _ 'H-hello? Where a-are y-you little b-b-boy?' She called out, worry on her face when she felt a presence behind her. She felt as a warm male body pressed itself against her, she could feel, rather than hear the rumbling chuckle roll through the body before it placed a muscled arm around her body, pinning her tightly. Her body stiffened as she felt warm breath against her ear.

'I don't think that matters now Hinata-sama.'

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Meanwhile, back to the emerging Uchiha/Hyuuga debacle . . .

'Uchiha.' Neji said with a curt nod.

'Hyuuga.' Sasuke said back in the same polite, crisply snobby voice, he noted with a inner smirk that Neji had shown a split second twitch of annoyance as he had mimicked him.

'How is the work in fourth division?' Neji said innocently, a barely repressed gleeful tone in his deep voice, a polite smirk on his handsome face that made it look deceptively like it was mild mannered chit chat instead of the well disguised attack it really was.

'Fine.' The Uchiha said through clenched teeth, although the simpering fangirls and curious watchers of the unfolding conversation were unaware of it, Neji had just insulted him about his abilities as a ninja. He was a captain although only of the first team, fourth division of the ANBU assassination squads which was designated for easy kills those of civilians deaths and things like that with mostly guard duty in one of the Hokage's many meetings, well that was what it used to be now it was mostly used for the Hokage's filling team. Sasuke had been placed there with much amusement by the Godaime, herself. Although on the odd occasion he was sent on higher ranking missions mostly for appearance sake with the Council.

Neji was also a captain, leader of the third team of the second division, hunter nin department, meaning he actually got to do things that were interesting, high paying and challenging. He had already bagged himself two A/B rank missing nins this month and was rumoured to getting another promotion soon to division leader.

'That's good.' Neji said with a patronising smile towards the younger ninja, which sent hearts fluttering on the sideline as they sighed over the exulted idol that the long haired Hyuuga was. While the Uchiha fangirls with their multicoloured banners of the red and white face waved them in excitement, squealing at this overture of potential bishie loving.

' . . .' Sasuke said, glaring daggers at the smirking Hyuuga which would have made his deceased family proud. He kept his eyes on Neji as he rapidly went through scenarios to wipe that patronising smirk off his face, he opened his mouth to speak when Neji finally said something.

'I need to talk to you personally, meet me at the Hyuuga mansion at three.' He said seriously, his eyes locked on Sasuke's

'What for Hyuuga?' Sasuke said with a raised eyebrow.

'Interclan relations.' Neji replied, a slight rising of his tone as well as the emphasis on the word signifying that it was a serious issue.

'I'll be there.' He turned and looked down with disdain at the fangirl who looked up at him adoringly. She was typically clad in the latest clothes trend like most of her kind, pop/punk clothing or an attempt at it with a loose striped bubblegum pink and black double layered tank top with a slashed pair of black cargoes. She wore a lot of jewellery, mostly elastic inspiration bands around her wrists and her black Hello Kitty bag had some badges on it mostly of pop bands rather then the obscure rock bands, TV shows and slogans most actual punks and musos sported.

She demurely fanned herself with an Uchiha fan, his eyes landed on the single word written in hastily scrawled black marker with a twitch, yaoi. He glared at the giggling fangirl who had summoned more of her kind around her, there was a few seconds where they talking amongst themselves with much giggling and hushed whispering. Sasuke looked back at Neji who was looking on with amusement as the Uchiha began to be surrounded by his fangirls. With one final hiss from her friends, she gathered her courage and asked Sasuke the question that made Neji mentally roll around in silent laughter.

'Are you and Neji-sama?' Her face flushed as she glanced in what was supposed to be a coy manner at the expressionless Hyuuga as she gestured behind him with her fan before erupting into more giggling. Sasuke looked behind him and stood for a few seconds wondering what she was on about before he finally got the disguised offer. _'OMG Neji and I?' _

Neji watched as Sasuke turned a confused look on his face before all the colour drained on his face, his eyebrow twitched in that way the Uchiha always did when he was feeling self conscious. 'No.' The girl sighed in disappointment before her eyes brightened and she began to twist her hair around her finger, staring at him in a creepy, stalkerish almost predatory look. An equally disturbing smile lit her face which scarily reminded him of a certain snake sannin.

'If you're busy now, when you do get together,' A perverted grin appeared on her face, Sasuke twitched once again it reminded him way too much of Orochimaru for comfort, the next comment drove him over the edge. 'Can we watch?'

'Get lost.' Sasuke said coldly, all the fangirls shivered as their idol fixed them with a incredibly hot death glare, as one they turned bowed and scampered out to watch some other shinobi bishie that seemed like they had other inclinations. Lucky for them that a certain half naked brown haired teacher was off duty that morning and working out in the forest nearby.

Sasuke turned on his heel, a weak attempt of a smile was made as he looked at Neji. 'Yaoi fangirls huh?'

The Hyuuga shouldered past the Uchiha heir, a confident smirk on his face. 'I don't know about you but I never get any.' That elegantly stated answer left Sasuke fuming as the Hyuuga strode serenely away, while Neji just had on his favourite frown commonly known as "You're not worth my time." Sasuke glared at the disappearing back, well aware that the aforementioned could see him. _'Such a wanker.'_

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Naruto jogged up the ice cream cart, easily stopping the much bigger man in his tracks as he held on with one hand. 'Can I have two cones thanks?'

'Size, flavour, topping.' The man said in a bored manner, Naruto twitched at the blandness of the voice. The man was a middle aged guy who looked like he would rather be anywhere else but here serving ice cream to teenagers. The blonde looked at the board.

'Triples, vanilla for one the other death by chocolate,' Naruto paused looking at the board, he had to get a reaction from the guy it was driving him crazy. 'Mango sorbet and low fat mint icecream, both with fudge and cream thanks.' Nope, nothing not even a single twitch, he had just chosen potentially the nastiest combination known to man besides the insane who drank orange juice after brushing their teeth.

'That'll be $12.50 thanks.' Naruto fished around in his waist pouch, holding assorted kunai and fishing wire in his mouth before he got the correct amount. The man handed over the cones with a roll of his eyes before walking off. The blonde childishly stuck his tongue out, damn he hated people like that. He looked down at the rapidly melting ice creams, licking the white goo off his hands before turning his attention to his own as he walked back to where Hinata was waiting for him.

Naruto blanched as his tongue hit the junction of cream, fudge, mint and mango, then he caught sight of something that worried him greatly. His eyes scanned the deserted area, Hinata was nowhere to be seen, he frowned and walked over to the bench. She had been sitting here recently he knew that, he remembered seeing her do so and he could smell her shampoo as well. Naruto frowned as he looked around the park, his head snapped up as he heard a faint moaning sound. Intrigued by the noise, he followed along with a slight blush on his face.

He walked from the thick underbrush easily, alternating between slurps of his cone Hinata's, after all he was pretty sure she wouldn't mind, Hinata was such a nice person and all. The noise he had heard had stopped completely, with one hand he brushed away the undergrowth stopping completely at the sight he saw. Naruto growled angrily at the missing nin who was doing something to Hinata.

'Let go of her Kabuto.'

The white haired medic nin turned slowly his arms still wrapped the Hyuuga heiress, who's eyes were rapidly fluttering shut. She looked up at him, a faint glint of recognition in her eyes as she began to black out.

'Are you going to make me Naruto-kun?' He said as he dropped Hinata to the floor, a smirk on his face as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Kabuto lowered his head so his eyes couldn't be seen, a smile on his face. 'It's too bad, I didn't want this to happen.'

Naruto eyes lit in shock as a log thudded down from above him with one twitch of the chakra string in Kabuto's hand. The medic nin pulled out a kunai as he saw the grey plume of smoke that escaped from underneath the length of wood. Several handfuls of kunai flew towards him, with as easy flick of the wrist he caught them all. Suddenly catching glimpse of the explosive tags wrapped around the handles, he vaulted himself just out of the way as a red hot pillar of flame raced towards him with the words. 'Katon: Gamayu Endan/Fire element: Toad Oil, Flame Bullet!'

Kabuto landed back on the ground, his neat hair slightly frazzled by the heat from the flame which was still merrily burning away. It had been three years since they had fought and Naruto had improved impeccably, he was thinking ahead and still hadn't revealed himself in any way as well as that he had expanded from his usage of Kage Bunshin no jutsu as his only ability. A slight smile lit his face. 'You've improved Naruto-kun.' No answer, meaning he was taking this seriously at least, his eyes creased, maybe he should start doing the same. Kabuto's froze as he felt a kunai against his back.

'Gotcha.' Naruto whispered, a grin of triumphant on his face. Kabuto moved quickly dropping to the floor, kicking the weapon out of the blonde's hand only to be met by the direct kick to the side that the waiting bunshin was waiting for. He was sent flying and cursed himself for being so careless.

Naruto wordlessly entered his Naruto Rendan technique, which like Sasuke's had been improved greatly on. Instead of several clones rushing in and kicking the enemy's feet from under them, the clones were arranged in a rough square formation and they effectively bounced the target back and forth with a flurry of punches and kicks to vital areas. As Kabuto was now learning, as first one sent a heavy chakra laden punch to his stomach, kicking him into the air, only to brought down with another set of blows from the clone opposite.

Kabuto winced at the heavy blows already working to heal them, his hands already blurring into a set of hand techniques landing on the floor ready for whatever devastating finishing move Naruto had planned. He let the chakra flood back into his body as he saw why Naruto had suddenly backed off. He clicked his tongue in annoyance as he caught sight of the man clad in a oversized white kimono standing protectively over him with a long bone like sword in one hand.

'Are you having trouble Kabuto-san?' A deep deadpan voice said quietly.

Naruto stared at the newcomer. Maybe it was the pale girly face, the oversized clothing, creepy stare, the annoyingly superior air or maybe it was the fact that this guy had the chief characteristics of all his old rivals and enemies, but for some obscure reason he wanted to run over and beat the living crap out of the guy. For some reason the sympathetic Naruto despised the emotional "Why me?" vibes coming off the guy, it was kinda like how he felt about Sasuke, except that was more along the lines of "suck it up you pussy," with a little "I'm better than you and I'm going to prove it."

He winced as the ground around him suddenly opened up and he felt into the deep hole, buried up to his neck in moist soil, his mouth filled with leaf litter. He glared at the medic nin who was smiling back at him innocently as if he hadn't just attacked him while he wasn't looking.

'Doton: Shinju Zanshu no jutsu/ Earth Element: Inner Decapitation technique! Handy isn't it? You won't be getting out anytime soon, huh Naruto-kun?' Kabuto said as he ruffled the blonde's unruly hair, much to Naruto's displeasure.

From out of nowhere, conveniently enough for Naruto thanks to the laws of fanfiction, a fully equipped ANBU squad swung from the trees whooping Xena style as they landed in various cool poses. One in a snake mask spoke up as they began to close in around the missing nins. Kabuto had picked up the body of the groggy Hyuuga heiress who was gradually coming to, as the hastily applied technique wore off.

'We're here to investigate a B rank Fire jutsu used outside of the designated training zones.' He paused as he caught sight of Kabuto, Kimimaro, Naruto and a semi conscious Hinata who were staring at him as if he was insane, the blonde gave Kabuto a look as if to say, "Is this guy for real?" Which Kabuto only shrugged in response to the unspoken gesture, coughing as he pointed in a round about fashion to the mask, signing the words, "ANBU." Naruto looked enlightened, everyone knew you joined the ANBU if you were brilliant and slightly weird, sure as hell explained why Neji and Sasuke were part of it.

They watched as the thought process of the snake masked ANBU member could be seen through his body language, his eyes taking in Kimimaro's curse seal and his and Kabuto's Otonin forehead protectors. It was many long seconds later when the ANBU captain opened his mouth. 'Bingo book Otonin? I'm eating steak tonight!' Everyone rolled their eyes including his team mates who had broken out into applause at that brilliant observation (cough, not, cough).

Kimimaro sheathed his sword back into his shoulder, which made Naruto flinch in sympathy pain despite the ease in which the white haired man did so. Kabuto performed another set of hand seals, a bored look clearly on his face. 'Sorry to fight and run but we've got important business to attend to. Otonin-Shunshin/ Sound Body Flicker.' Kabuto and Kimimaru disappeared in an ear shattering blast of a minor 9th diminished chord, commonly known as the devil's interval.

'Damn.' The snake masked ninja said, snapping his fingers. 'They got away.'

The last thing Hinata heard as she disappeared besides the agonising sound wave were the words. 'I'M COMING FOR YOU HINATA! I PROMISE, THAT'S MY NIN-'

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In another part of Konoha . . .

All the available members of Konoha's most esteemed clan the Hyuugas were seated in the clan meeting room, everyone from the Main house to the Branch house was called here today for a very important discussion taking place. It was silent with a heavy awkward feeling in the air it could be seen in the way that everyone avoided one another's eyes, a considerable task since they could see in almost 360 degrees of vision, the uncomfortable shuffling as well as the loosened robe tops. The tension was broken as a bird masked ANBU member from the Main house spoke up.

'So we have no choice then?'

Hyuuga Hiashi began to brood with his favourite Hyuuga frown, "Damn, trouble making peasants." As he crossed his arms and leant back on his heels. Being the head of Konoha's most powerful clan was pretty stressful and you would have expected that Hiashi would have gotten used to the constant pressure by now but he wasn't. Even he was surprised by how binding the contract he had signed was.

In fact, it was still valid even after the other party had been brutally massacred ten years ago, a curse on that damn fine print. Unfortunately for the still thriving Hyuugas, the aforementioned party had fulfilled their part, providing the Hyuuga house with some of the oldest jutsu scrolls freely from their library, this time without dangerous summon jutsus embedded at random throughout the pages, the promise of everlasting peace (not that, that was actually hard . . .) **and **to forever mingle their clans as one. That last part was the hard one, this was the topic that had the Hyuuga stumped as they tried to weasel out of the deal but since they were Hyuuga's and had to set an example, they had to follow through. Hiashi had to finish their half of the deal as the Hyuuga patriarch and now that Hinata was of age, it was time.

'Hiashi-sama?' A Branch member spoke up.

A younger Main house member nodded. 'Indeed Hiashi-senpai, what is your decision on the matter? We don't really have to follow through with the deal since they're dead.'

Hiashi glared at the younger male, who withered under the intensity of the glance. 'No, we gave our word fifteen years ago and we will uphold Hyuuga honour.'

One of the women sitting on the Branch house side, licked her lips nervously as she said. 'But isn't he . . .'

The unspoken word hung in the air as they all tugged on the collars of their robes as one. It wasn't that the Hyuugas thought there was anything wrong with ga-ga-ga, homo-homose-homoseth-homoseths, people who liked people of the same gender, being an old fashioned family they just had trouble adapting to new ideas.

One bright chirpy voice spoke up from Hiashi's left side. 'He's gay as a fluffy pink dice, I saw him kissing the fox boy.'

A spat of violent coughing started around the table as several Hyuuga's choked on their Hyuuga blend green tea. Hiashi's wife spoke sternly to her youngest daughter. 'Hanabi, that's not a very nice thing to say, besides he's not gay,' Everyone winced in the room but Hiashi and Hanabi as she paused. 'Gay.' Shudders all around, some people even went as far to wipe their hands nervously. 'He's . . . different.'

Hiashi coughed. 'Nevertheless, we gave our word and we will keep it.'

Another Main house member mused. 'I wonder how Hinata-sama will react to her arranged marriage?'

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A/N- Following in JAJapster's footsteps, repaying back the favour of him using parts of my fic, I'm pretty sure he won't mind . . . I think I shall parody my favourite parts of various fanfics from now on, not just RPG's and normal things.

I know you hate Japanese in fanfics JAJapster, its part of the story damnit, like Mary Sues, character name misspellings and plot holes! It just happens its like getting wisdom teeth and going through puberty you can't stop it. An example was my last chapter, I lectured about different types of English but forgot to add n to the end of Australia and America, which would have changed it from a proper noun to an adjective, but meh, its too late now. Techniques will be in Japanese/then English, no one can change this, it's something those dubbed episodes will not change!

Ice cream, I eat that combination regularly or slight variations. Orange juice from MacDonald's after brushing your teeth shudders no person should try it. It physically hurts.

Attack of the yaoi fangirls! screaming from BMR13 as she is swamped by them Get off! No, I won't write a smut scene with two or more bishies! fights them off one by one Ignore me, I've run out of library books to read so I always get a little antsy, I have to amuse myself with my own imagination til I can get a fix, I mean more books. Thank God for those books I stockpiled from some random book sale.


	4. Tennis Match from Hell Hyuuga vs Uchiha

**BMR13**/ The member of the Breakfast Trinity called French Toast-

**HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BMR13 **

**AND LORD NUTARI!**

Allo, this is the rewritten fourth chapter of Sun of Dance and Moon starting on the original second chapter enjoy (Yes almost out of Konoha!)

There's something about rewriting nine pages of a chapter that pisses the hell out of you, cause that's what I do. I swap between the original and the new document and rewrite it paragraph by paragraph and this is one of the short ones! Thankfully as soon as I hit the middle, I get my groove back and can type like a demon, it's the getting started that stumps me. That and I write a lot when a deadline for school work is coming up P. Deleting parts of my stories hurts but I'm gradually learning to let go, maybe one day I'll even get around to revising whole drafts!

Dedicated to:

**The Elusive DubleHelix**- ZOMG! YOU REVIEWED! Everyone meet dublehelix, my real life best friend, introducer to various fiction websites and previously my beta reader. Like hell no, you're not polluting my review space. Have you been checking your school email? Cause Sophie got the messages I've been sending her, I have to invite you to my b'day soon! OMG I DIDN'T GET YOU ANYTHING FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY! runs into the wall and faints

**JAJapster**- Awesome-ness undefined, so jealous of your KH2, the member of the Breakfast Trinity known as Waffles

**The Happy Stalker Ball**- Ahhh, new update :3 It was an awesome chapter, the member of the Breakfast Trinity known as Pancakes

**Mokusei4**- So happy you thought it was weird

**Krazy Kitsune 13**- I'm a bit of a yaoi fangirl myself

**Demo-san**- A person who has crossed over from the Dark Side . . . I mean Glorious Sky

**Anon: Emily**- Very clever of you to notice I don't believe in commas or full stops, full stop. One last thing,

**WHO ARE YOU DAMN ANON. REVIEWERS? LEAVE CONTACT DETAILS DAMN IT!**

Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto and whatever references I use which include and are not limited to .redjunko's "Itcha Itcha Naruto", agent spialplatz's "Photo Day", noodle loving baka and small and chibi like's "Answering Machines", sullen witnesses from various criminal shows, . . . and other random things that have sunk into my subconscious.

Contains- Evil emo thoughts, swearing, lots and lots of innuendo if you know what I mean wiggles eyebrows . . . which in itself is an innuendo . . .

**GO THE BLUES!**

Deep underground where the mole people- I mean the ANBU live . . .

Naruto pulled out the wood chair with an ear piercing screech against the cheap yellow vinyl. He immediately sat down scraping the chair towards the table, nails on a blackboard couldn't compare to the noise that blonde was making. He then proceeded to push the chair back again with another scream of metal, he crossed his legs, then recrossed them, then they were crossed at the ankle, then he swung his legs, then he crossed them again and then he began to lean back on his chair swinging on one leg with impeccable ninja balance. Until an ANBU member in a frog mask firmly forced the chair down, Naruto gave an apologetic half smile before paying attention to the ANBU who had been questioning him.

The bear masked ANBU member rolled his eyes glad for the cover of his mask, he repeated once again. 'So what happened Naruto-kun?'

Naruto ignored the bear masked man as he continued to look around the room. It was small, concrete walled room with only three pieces of furniture in it, two wooden chairs and a single desk separating them. No sounds could be heard from outside meaning either that they were deep underground or that the walls were sound proofed.

There were five masked ANBU personnel in the room besides him, their captain in a bear mask, the snake masked idiot from earlier, a frog masked girl, a wolf masked man and ironically enough a fox masked girl. He wasn't sure of how he had gotten out of earth elemental trap, when or where he had gotten tested to see if his ears were working, he still had the smiley face stamp from the Sound testing room in the hospital so it must have been recent, let alone when or how he had gotten to the ANBU Interrogation chambers.

'_**It's your fault she's gone. If you hadn't been so stupid as to leave her alone, she would be heard safe in Konoha.'**_

Naruto ignored the dark voice inside him, taunting him and making him feel like some disgusting thing that had crawled out of a dank hole. The little voice inside his head that had been his only friend and companion as long as he could remember, because even thought it was his worst enemy. It was still better than the loneliness he had faced. The times he had reached out to his fellow villagers seeking friendship, comfort and acceptance. Just for someone, anyone to be there and be happy to see him, to know that he was acknowledged and wanted . . . and all that he had been met with was scorn, disgust and intense hatred for something he didn't understand.

'_**It's no use. Everyone hates you. No matter what you do, you will always be alone. ' **_

All the times he had enviously watched other children walking home with their families. When he had hurt himself training and no one was there to take care of him. When he had watched from the side, patiently waiting to be asked into a game the other children were playing.

'_**You're ugly, stupid and a waste of flesh. A pathetic excuse for a human, it's no surprise you were abandoned. No one understands you, no one likes you, no one wants you and most importantly no one will ever love someone such as you. In fact, no one would even care if you dropped dead today.'**_

So he had watched, always waiting from the sidelines. For someone to look over and smile briefly, because then maybe, just maybe he would feel what it was like to know what it was like to be accepted. But it had never happened, always ignored, always left alone in the corner with only the insidious poison of the little voice in his head for company.

He had made his decision; he would be what others wanted him to be a clown, a troublemaker. Someone to be laughed at, laughed with and most importantly someone to be around that could make themselves feel better. Maybe he had left his real self buried under that carefully constructed mask, but it was still better than the yawning abyss left by loneliness that he remembered only too well. His voice knew better though, it was still with him even with his friends being there but it was finally banished.

It as the day after failing his third Genin exam when he had finally taken the advice of the little voice inside, what had he to lose after all? Friends? Family? Money? Power?

'_**Take the scroll, it's the only way you'll be accepted.'**_

But it wasn't, he had stolen the scroll for Mizuki and he had almost been killed for his troubles but there **was **someone there for him and someone **did **care about what happened to him. Iruka sensei had cared enough to risk his own life defending him.

It the defining moment in his life, if he had to chose the happiest moment of his life, as morbid as it sounded, that time where he had discovered someone out there was willing to risk his life for him. This was closely matched with the times when he had beaten the crap out of Mizuki and then Iruka had asked him to live with him, this was also comparable with the day after when he had gotten his forehead protector, the New Years all you can eat special at Ichiraku's and the time he became Hokage. The last one hadn't happened yet but he had a pretty good idea of what would happen, since he had acted it out with his kage bunshins several hundred times.

From then on he had gained more and more friends, people who liked being around them despite their initial thoughts that he was a loud idiot, who acknowledged albeit grudgingly and until now he hadn't heard a peep from the dark little voice inside. Even his talks with the Kyuubi were more fun and less demoralising then that little voice. At least the Kyuubi didn't act like some bitchy old queen and his Inner Fox had a sense of humour, even if it was crude and dirtier than Jiraiya's.

The ANBU cleared his throat as he watched Naruto sink into an impressive brood and sit down to ponder some dark thoughts. The blonde started and stared up at him with wide innocent blue eyes. He sighed and they sat in silence for a while as Naruto seemed to be thinking hard about what he was about to say. Suddenly the door was flung open just as he opened his mouth, the Hokage herself stepped in.

'Old Lady Hokage.'

All five ANBU personnel in the room stood up and saluted their superior before sinking down at her casual wave. Brown eyes locked with blue eyes as they began their usual stare off. However this time Naruto was the first to back down, which alerted Tsunade to the change to the exuberant blonde. The instantly pissed expression on her face that she always had on when she met Naruto faded away to an almost concerned look. It was probably his way of dealing with it and she didn't have the time to straighten out the psychological damage that had inadvertently occurred from this new situation.

Naruto had been blaming himself for what had happened. It showed in everything he did, the almost brittle smile on his face that threatened to break at any moment, the false cheeriness in his insolent greetings almost too peppy, making it sound like he was overcompensating. His eyes were different as well, duller and missing the bright spark that combined with his trademark grin was his signature calling card.

'Continue on as if I weren't here.'

'. . . this morning, I met Hinata-chan at Ichiraku's . . .' Naruto began in a subdued monotone. 'We ate lunch and after I apologised to her we organised to meet for lunch after I submitted my mission report . . . we went to see a movie and we were walking through the park when I left to get us some ice cream. When I came back he had started doing stuff and I managed to get him cornered until this white haired guy came,' the blonde gestured around the room, looking at the Snake masked ANBU member. 'Then these guys came.'

'Who were they?'

The ANBU exchanged looks between themselves thinking the same thought. _'What kinda . . . stuff?' _The Captain gave a slight nod, making his subordinates pay attention. 'Can you remember who it was?'

Naruto nodded, a look of cold rage on his face sending chills down everyone's backs. He remembered exactly who it was, Yakushi Kabuto, the worst kind of traitor possible existing as a double agent for countless years. During the Sand invasion, Kabuto had gone for his yearly failure of the Chuunin exams acting his part of the Sound spy by gathering information on all the rising malcontents of the ninja world. Absolutely no one had suspected him, although now they were kicking themselves as the obvious signs kept popping up including his constant desire to pass up the finals for the Chuunin exam. His actions had lead to one of Konoha's best swordsman, Gekkou Hayate being killed, as well as hundreds of other civilians and Konoha militia.

He had hypnotised the entire Chuunin exam audience, allowing Orochimaru to isolate the Sandaime and ultimately to kill him. The Sound traitor had also been instrumental in the Sand's intimate knowledge of Konoha allowing them to bypass sentries and set up key summoning circles thanks to his information.

'Yakushi Kabuto, tall, grey haired man dressed in a purple tunic with grey pants and he has a pair of wire rimmed glasses. He's wearing the Otonin forehead protector. The other man I've never met, white haired guy with green eyes. They had weird red shadows underneath them, he wore a white kimono tied with a purple rope and he fought with a weird sword. He's fast and skilled in taijutsu.' Naruto stopped and his eyes crinkled as he fought for words, pointing at his chest whilst tapping a spot between his collar bones. 'A curse seal like Sasuke's was here.'

The fox masked member sat up, her voice excited. 'The A rank missing nin who defected to the Sound ma'am?'

Tsunade nodded, her eyes downcast as she began to think over the situation. _'Orochimaru is causing more trouble again, I guess it was only a matter of time but what could he possibly want with Hyuuga Hinata? She isn't as strong as her cousin . . . it just doesn't make sense.' _The blonde haired woman leant against the wall, her face not betraying one stray thought that was racing through her mind._ 'Kabuto can be explained as he does everything for him but the white haired man doesn't fit Jiraiya's information about the Sound Four and neither is it consistent with the Sand Invasion reports. The reports were of a short haired guy with two heads, a dark eight armed man, a fat butterball with orange hair and a red haired girl with the mouth of a sailor. It's not like Jiraiya to get things wrong like that.'_

'Hokage-sama?' Tsunade looked up at the voice, her eyes landing on the frog masked male. 'What are your orders?

'Be very careful with this mission, I'm making it an A rank. Send an ANBU team out immediately and inform the Hyuuga house as quickly as possible.' She frowned as she continued on. 'If it gets out to the public you have my permission to wipe their memories, the last thing we want is for demoralising news like this to get out. It'll make them wonder if we're really doing our jobs if they find out that our biggest enemies are able to just waltz into the middle of Konoha and kidnap the heir of one of our strongest clans.'

'Let me go with them.' They all turned to stare at the blonde, who was staring back at them determination blazing in his eyes. 'I want to make it up to her.'

'No. This is bad enough already, I don't want our forces to be further depleted if this turns out to be serious. Besides I won a sweepstakes today, barring the fact that it was a free tour of the Hokage tower, it's still a sign. You won't be going.'

Naruto and her began to face of once again and everyone waited with baited breath for the outcome of this one. Unfortunately it ended in a draw. Tsunade kept her eyes on the younger blonde. 'Inform the Hyuuga house that they may send a three man group no more, no less to help.' Her eyebrow twitched upwards as Naruto began to play dirty giving her Labrador puppy dog eyes, with those big blue eyes and that lost expression, she began to feel an urge to crush him to her chest and scream _'Kawaii". _She glared at him and added grudgingly. 'Naruto, if you feel that badly, you can assemble a three man team with Sakura once she gets back from Sunagakure tomorrow. Only _if _she agrees and you can find a third member who has to be an established Jounin.'

Naruto smiled brightly and it was like a choir was singing as he did so, a halo floating around his head. She had to stop herself from running over and squishing him to pieces, the female ANBU behind her were twitching themselves. _'Damn those puppy dog eyes.' _She cursed herself for her weakness before sighing. 'Dismissed.'

**GO THE BLUES!**

In the Hyuuga Mansion . . .

Sasuke sat still as a rock in front of the entire Hyuuga council, his gaze unwavering as he evenly met their occasional glances. His face was unemotional as he skimmed through the document in front of him, his feet were tucked underneath his body and his hands were placed flat against his thighs. The Uchiha looked up for a split second from the aged document. It was slightly yellow from age, smelt mildewy and it was warped in some places but he noticed that the untarnished Uchiha and Hyuuga family crests were as bright as the day they were made.

'So what you're saying is that because me family signed a contract ten-'

'Eighteen actually.' Hiashi helpfully added.

'Eighteen years ago.' Sasuke repeated before continuing on, glaring at the older man. 'A contract which by all accounts should be declared null and void, I have to have to be,' The Uchiha leant closer to get a look at the blurred word which looked like it had been scratched out, 'Carried to Hinata,' he paused before adding. 'Or Hanabi.'

'OrNeji.' Someone coughed from the back of the hall. A spluttering of violent coughing began and Sasuke looked over his shoulder giving the innocently choking and shuddering Hyuugas, a livid _'Uchiha pwns Hyuuga' _glare on his striking countenance.

'What does it say?'

The dark haired ANBU turned to face Hiashi, who was himself recovering from choking on his cup of green tea. He removed a tea stalk from his mouth elegantly before continuing on, in his deep composed voice.

'You're to be proposed to one of our heirs.' This was met with a blank stare from the normally quick-witted young man. 'Betrothed, intended . . . affianced.' The Hyuuga head paused before adding in an almost pleased voice by Hyuuga standards. 'One day you're going to be married!' Sasuke's eyes bulged before he stared the Hyuuga in a glare that would have turned the older man to stone if it could.

'Not married more like betrothed. You were to be married this year since you both turned eighteen but the Jounin exams were on and we decided it was best to wait until you were both twenty one.' Hiashi chose to omit the fact that they hadn't found or remembered the document about the marriage until last week when they were looking for a special feeding program for the Hyuuga falcons.

'As you may have noticed in the exceptionally fine print in the second paragraph, third sentence from the bottom, it stipulates that as long as there is a member of either house left the contract must be fulfilled. Otherwises there is a lost of family honour,' Hiashi peered at the contract and said under his breath.

'Oryou'recursedtodieahorribledeathfromherpeswhichwillcomefromafemaleelephantnamedDoris.'

'Did you say something Hyuuga-sama?' Sasuke said with puzzlement as the head of the Hyuuga family covered his mouth and mumbled something. The Hyuuga Jounin shook his head innocently looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth,

'Its fine, something in my throat. Anyway, so because the Uchiha clan gave our clan unlimited access to their library and gave us their unrestricted support, we have to marry off one of our heirs. So you see what an awkward situation we are in, if we pull out now there is a major loss of family honour and our reputation for keeping our word.' Little did Hiashi know that the twenty percent of the fifty percent of the Konoha population who weren't in love with Neji or Hinata and loved Uchihas, though that they were sneaky little bastards.

'. . .' Sasuke said as he looked back down at the old document in his hands. His demeanour hadn't changed once in the whole time that Hiashi was speaking besides the flicker of interest at the mention of family honour. To the brooding Uchiha nothing mattered more than bringing his family name back to its full reverence . . . well besides killing Itachi that is.

His gaze casually moved over the numerous seated Hyuuga, most of the normally fierce male Hyuugas were as meek as lambs today as they avoided his glare. Without even noticing, he slipped into the infamous Uchiha brood. He began lacing his fingers together under his chin and hunching over slightly to make himself look bigger. Sasuke turned his attention to the blameless document in front of him and death stared it. If looks could kill the contract would have spontaneously combusted by now.

The spiffy, dark haired Uchiha brooded over the document, an intense angst filled aura filling the room which all the women started to notice with interest. Some of them started to smile flirtatiously at him, some began to blush fire engine red and some even began to swoon, which started to seriously annoy their overprotective male relatives. As one they all began to give the Hyuuga 'better than you' death glares while most acted as if they didn't care with their multipurpose emotionless faces under which their minds seethed with visions of the Uchiha's death by yaoi fangirls. On the inside they were all reaching for their kunai and readying the sharp chakra bursts that would enable them to start using the arrogant young Uchiha as a piñata.

While Sasuke was pondering how he could get out of this sticky situation, Hiashi was watching him like a hawk. The Hyuuga Jounin had noticed how not once had the younger Uchiha's shown the slightest bit of emotion, '_A wonderful trait for a potential son in law. Head and shoulders above that Aburame.' _He thought with a slight smirk. It was an admirable trait in a shinobi to take things in their stride, his own notoriously stoic clan was well known for their lack of emotion and **they **had freaked out on discovering the semi-rotten contract of doom.

While Sasuke was pondering how he could get out of this sticky situation, Hiashi was watching him like a hawk. He had to admire the young man's testicular fortitude for having brooded in a room surrounded by his ancestral rivals, a brave albeit foolish effort. He also had to admire the young man's composure, while most of his own notoriously emotionless clan had freaked out upon finding out the existence of the offensive document in question, this Sasuke had taken it in his stride.

He cast a cynical eye over the genius Uchiha's muscular form, it was a very nice brood indeed even by Hyuuga standards, he hadn't seen a Uchiha brood that good since Itachi's Chuunin exams. A good mix between the three ANG's: ANGst, ANGer and ANGuish. He was slightly heavy on the ANGst for no reason whatsoever, it would have been more appropriate in this case for more ANGuish but hey, he still had years ahead of him although this didn't seem likely with all the angry glaring Hyuugas around him. As usual his pride and joy Neji was the best, he could feel the killing intent rolling off the boy in waves, he could have cried from pride.

He couldn't help thinking proudly of his nephew and how they were alike, the Uchiha was so much better than the Aburame boy. They were both their respective Rookie of the Year as well as considerable masters of their blood limit and they both known to have large fan bases. Although Sasuke had a nasty case of_ Admirara stalkereous yaoi_ and it was even rumoured that the Uchiha was a greater genius than the Hyuuga. Well that's what he heard around town that is . . . Hiashi was looking forward to the day when Neji would beat the stuffing out of Sasuke for some imagined slight. _'It'll be like the old days all over again.' _The Hyuuga head thought wistfully, a slight smile on his face. Back in the day when kunai were called knives because that was the style at the time, and when Hyuuga and Uchiha fights were so regular you could set your watch by them.

The last great match had been the Main's Hiro and the Uchiha Shisui, a good match Hiro had been hospitalised for slightly longer than usual in the ICU but it was still brought up in conversations today as a point of blood limit excellence. He leant back on his impressively plumped cushion, his eyes floating up and away he remembered **his **Chuunin exam against Sasuke's father Fugaku . . .

While everyone was engaged in the one sided staring match or like Hisashi was twitching away in some strangely warped daydream, there was one semi-important girl who had been left out of the clan meeting thus far, Hyuuga Hanabi. The Hyuuga scion was now a fully-fledged Genin and had in fact been on an incredible hard mission in the neighbouring village looking after a civilian school excursion to the Hokage Tower. It had been sooooo interesting, not. Hanabi was sick and tired of no one letting her do harder missions, she was a Hyuuga damn it, someone to be noticed and worshipped for her ancient bloodline.

She looked curiously over to the seated Uchiha with interest, _'This is the guy that Hinata's marrying?' _How interesting, not. He didn't look the godlike figure that all her friends adored, he was just sitting there . . . doing nothing, she'd seen more interesting rocks. She looked around the room, everyone was concentrating on anything else but the glaring Uchiha, the whole room was silent, so Hanabi decided to change all that.

'Hey, you're the guy that's going to marry my Nee-san right?'

' . . .' Sasuke turned slightly to get the adolescent teen in sight, she was sitting on the other side of Hiashi next to the elegantly clothed woman who he presumed was her and Hinata's mother. He locked eyes with her, for a Hyuuga she was unusually loud. She was about ten and if he remembered correctly she had just finished becoming a Genin, from the rumours amongst the clans of Konoha she was supposed to be even at this age, stronger than her older sister. After going through this helpful information, he turned to face Hiashi once again.

Hanabi's eyebrow twitched, giving him a death stare that made her males cousins smile proudly, annoyed at his lack of interest. As one of Hiashi's children and a member of the esteemed Hyuuga Main house she was used to getting attention everywhere she went and she expected the same from this Uchiha Sasuke guy. So she decided to see what made the spikey haired ANBU tick.

'Really cause I heard you were gay.'

Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing to turn incredulously towards Hanabi. It was quiet, almost too quiet, as an expectant tension filled air began to condense in the room. As one they all watched Sasuke to see how he would react to the accusation. Hiashi and the rest of the Hyuuga clan sat in silence as the death staring duel of wits began.

'. . .' Sasuke's eyebrow twitched violently upwards, in the Uchiha way. _'The hell? If she wasn't a female Genin, I would beat the living shit out of her.'_

All the Hyuugas oohed before they realised that that '. . .' wasn't a word let along approaching anything a heavily medicated, genjutsu'ed ninja would think was a scathing counter attack upon their verbose young heiress. They watched as a look of triumph came over Hanabi's face, turning they saw Sasuke's face fade to a deadly death glare of sheer pissed-off-ness. Like some horrible tennis match from hell they turned their heads to watch the triumphantly smiling face of the young Hyuuga.

'I heard you made out with **Uzumaki Naruto, **for like **five **minutes,' She paused dramatically before adding with a jaunty bobbing of her head. 'In front of the whole Academy.'

'_OH MY GOD!' _Hiashi and his conscience screamed. While Hiashi was a very composed person as well as an accomplished Jounin, there were just some time in your life when you listened to the little scaredy cat within, this was starting to become one of them. He briefly contemplated what would happen if he pretended to Byakugan the walls and spot an assassin, then he remembered he was in a roomful of Hyuugas so he just sighed and waited out the storm. His deep voice sliced through the silent, tension filled air.

'Is that true?'

'. . .' Sasuke was wondering what he was about to say as he gazed wordlessly at the still serene Hyuuga's face, little did he know on the inside the impressive Hyuuga Hiashi was freaking out. _'If I lie, they'll pick it up in a split second. It wasn't like I wanted it anyway, I vomited for God's sake. I could get the taste of Naruto out of my mouth for days . . . or ramen. The idiot must wash in the stuff, I can't stand the sight of the stuff now.' _'In a way yes.' Sasuke said, calmly sipped his tea.

Every Hyuuga in the room sat there, jaws hitting the floor. Some of the fully grown, impressively awarded male Jounin who had lived through the Kyuubi and Sand attacks were edging away with looks of fear on their handsome faces. At the same time the women were weeping as was Hiashi, who's thoughts of the perfect son in law had died, maybe he could convince Shino or something, Hinata was getting on in the years. His conscience was currently paler than Orochimaru and was passing off a great impression of the Scream as it fluttered into a black void, wiggling from side to side.

'But it wasn't on purpose, the idiot was in my face about something and some random bumped him from behind. It wasn't that long, I wouldn't even call it a kiss.' Sasuke continued on.

Everyone turned to Hanabi who was quickly analysing the information she had just received, she was leaning forwards watching Sasuke with a stare that implied he was something that should be cautiously poked with a long stick.

'What do you mean by "not even a kiss"?' She said putting quotation marks into the air. She paused before adding, her pretty face lighting up. 'Have you had better?' She stopped once again, stopping the enraged Uchiha mid-sentence. 'You sounded disappointed at the length of the kiss.' Her pale eyes bulged and she leaned forwards, the look on her face approaching triumph, shock and morbid fascination.

'Did you **like** it?'

Everyone turned to watch Sasuke's reaction, his eyes had narrowed to mere red slits, his Sharingan already activated and spinning quickly. The look on his face plainly stated, _'I'm going to kick your Hyuuga arse.' _

'Listen you little-'

Whatever considerable oath that Sasuke was about to unleash on the house of Hyuuga was interrupted, when a long haired Branch house Jounin ran in bearing a scroll in her shaking hands. But whatever he said must have been a doozy because some of the men near him fainted from the sheer filth that was spewing out of his pretty mouth.

'Hiashi-sama, I have terrible news!'

'-ing your cousin.' True to form, Sasuke wasn't paying attention to anything that didn't directly involve him and so, he just finished what he had been saying. The dark haired Jounin looked around for shock, anger, nothing. Being the genius that he was he began noticing that no one was paying any attention so he turned and glared at the sweating Hyuuga.

'Can't it wait? We're in the middle of an important meeting here Rena.'

'It's direct from the office of the Hokage-sama herself, Hiashi-sama. It's Hyuuga business.'

Hiashi frowned his _'_Screw you, stop joking around'frown, starting to combine his brood and glare mightily. What could have possibly happened that is came from the Hokage herself? To his knowledge all Hyuugas were currently in Konoha, no one had taken on any seriously dangerous missions that month and everyone was at home getting ready for the annual broom fight. He looked left and right to make sure that everyone was there, every member from Branch and Main house was there, his own family. His eyes widened and the Jounin, Rena took this as her chance to announce the horrible news.

'Hinata-sama has been captured sir.'

**GO THE BLUES!**

A/N- My chapter divider is based on an Australian event, most of you wouldn't have heard of it. It's called Origin, a game of tackle footy between the Maroons and the blues: QLD/NSW. Hell most Aussies wouldn't care UNLESS YOU WERE FROM QLD OR NSW! I live in QLD and go for the Blues/ NSW side, I lose friends every year over this important issue but hell its worth it because WE WON, WE WON, WE WON!

I cut out heaps for this chapter . . . makes it flow better though and I fixed up some obvious plot holes like the fact that in the old one, a certain pair would have been declared missing nins. Somehow it ended up being longer still than the old one, almost in Tsukihime go w00t!

The reason why the Hyuuga family is so rich is because they've developed an ability to talk fast under their breath. Its known as fineprintese . . . sniggers

In other news, my sister, dad and I worked hard several weeks back to make me a huge freakin bookshelf for the random books I've collected over my fifteen almost sixteen years of living. Its 2.1m tall and about 1.2m wide, and blue, like periwinkle blue I painted it myself, triple coat over two days with my sister. I have blue paint splattered on my glasses and its dried there . . .

We (my little sister) cleaned up my room and packed in all the books, even my Enid Blyton novels, random books such as "Play with Spot", the still hilarious "Dinkum Dunnies", "The Alien Smurf", a book I had been looking all over for "The Twelve Days of Christmas" Golden book edition, right next to my manga, assorted Dragonlance novels, my small Eric Van Lustbader and crypto-zoology collection and random classics such as "Pride and Prejudice", "The Water Babies", "The Red Badge of Courage" and "The Call of the Wild." To name but a few.

Stay tuned for the next instalment when Neji catches up with Naruto and all hell breaks loose! Remember reviews and random emails are like welcome pop ups reminding me to continue writing!


	5. Strangers in the night

**BMR13- **Mwha ha ha ha! We're up the original 3rd chapter, one of my favourites to read even now! The introduction of my favourite character! It's hotter than the new Akatsuki members! Well I thought the new members were cool . . . although Kishimoto is running out of character designs, he's been changing clothes every other semi arc/plot twisting and now all the new designs have that half skirt thing Chouji/Neji/Ino are sporting or major male stomach like Hidan/Sai/ and vomit Sasuke.

I have a completely legit. Reason for not writing anything until now . . . I was extremely worried about my report card, I ended up getting straight B's with one C+ for English. That and I got the entire season of Ragnarok: The animation, episodes 1-14 and 30-41 of Full Metal Alchemist and I got some new Bleach.

. . . oh and a whole bunch of games including three Naruto games that are in Japanese. My favourite thus far is "Naruto RPG Uketsuareshi Hi no Ishi", I am nerdishly learning Japanese with this game . . . actually I'm getting by with language intuition, because I learn Chinese I can spot the kanji and know the equivalent with the animation helping me. The annoying one is "Naruto Konoha Senkai" Naruto just can't take on three zombies by himself! I know Iruka is giving me tactics but I can't understand them! The third one is a side scroller . . . ewwww.

I also went back home to NSW and bought plenty of anime stuff and was a complete tourist. I also met my grandnephew and three other nephews/cousins, don't ask how since I'm only 16, complex Asian family relationships.

I got accepted into the Griffith Conservatorium's State Honours Ensemble Program again! X D! I am slightly worried that I'm the only one going from my school and everyone in Wind Orchestra is my level or several times better oO' .

OMG- "The New Guy" has finished cries I was with that fic for ages! At least it had an awesome ending x 3. It's an awesome read Sasu/Naru, but it's long, and believe me even I can't read it in one sitting. Most of the chapters are 20+ pages with the last being an almighty 40 pages.

**Dedicated to:**

**Kichou- **wow short review . . .

**noodle loving baka and small and chibi like- **I talked to noodle for the first time ever on MSN! It was during the England/Portugal game!

**Krazy Kitsune 13- **Excellent, more aussies on the Naruto fandom

**JAJapster- **I will remind him of my considerable vomit inducing envy of his lyrical storytelling abilities. If you haven't read his stuff read it! It's full of lip smacking descriptive detail, a well plotted/often-updated storyline to keep your regular, more than your daily intake of humour as well as 75 less OC! All you need to do for this awesome story is write a review x3!

OMG Good luck with your studies and have fun living in the U.S now!

**The Happy Stalker Ball- **Hmm where are you? . . . probably playing games like me ' Read her work too! It has some of most hilarious one liners I've ever seen, she's also the awesome inventor of the home wrecking waffle/pancake/French toast feud as well as _Ninja Idol_ and being in the know. So get in the know and read it!

**Disclaimer-** I do not own Naruto. I make fun of everything . . . don't sit with my friends and I at the movies, back row of smartarses commenting on everything. Parodied versions of Exorcist, Discworld, Dilbert now exist in this story . . . whatever else has sunk into my subconscious from watching daytime TV on the July holidays. I love Adam West.

"**My god, I'm a tomato." - Adam West, 'Family Guy'**

Iruka's house . . .

'Flu medicine, water purifying tablets, bandages, one hundred metres of nylon rope, torch, kunai, shuriken . . .' Naruto paused as he finished coiling the sleek rope into his back pack. He gingerly pushed aside the box of purifying tablets that bore the standard no brand ANBU sticker and placed the rope inside, as if it had a mind of its own it unravelled and tangled around his feet. Naruto angrily scooped up the rope and placed it inside his beloved ANBU sack, he stared the rope down and it lay there innocent in all its white manufactured goodness.

He turned and picked up another set of kunai and heard a silky hiss behind him, he spun around just in time to see the rope slide to the floor. He picked it up and shoved it inside the bag once again, Naruto happily turned to grab his kunai once more and then he heard that cursed sound behind him once more. The rope was lying around his feet and he had to resist the urge to pull out the emergency dagger he hid in his boxers and rip it to shreds.

Naruto glared down at the white rope before a look of serenity came over his face, he tied it into an elaborate bow that even Sound shinobi would be proud of and began to remove things out of his bag. His bag was steadily emptied and next to Naruto a truly amazing pile of gear came to life ranging from the essential things he had mentioned earlier to clothes, toothpicks and even a solar powered microwave oven. But that was all ignored, as he took out a bright orange shirt and began to wrap the shirt around the tied rope. He carefully placed everything back inside his ancient backpack and leaned backwards to give the oddly bulging bag a satisfied grin of approval. He cocked his head to one side before figuring out what was wrong with the overflowing bag.

Naruto gave a wise looking nod, rubbing his non-existent beard. He stepped forwards and resorted to the tried and true, ancient tradition of punching his bag into a smaller compacted form. Several incredibly satisfying punches later Naruto leaned back and smiled at a job well done, as his bag sunk into a dejected pile on his bed. He turned away only to glance around at an ominous rumbling noise.

'Ahhhh!' That was the only thing Naruto was able to say as his bag exploded, spewing forth items, left and right, like a possessed church goer in a white nightgown. He sat up with a groan, peeling a pair of heart covered boxers off his face.

'I'm never going to get going.'

'You never learned how to pack your bag after all these years, shame on you Naruto.' A chuckling voice said from behind him.

Naruto turned and grinned at the scarred man standing at the entrance to his room. 'Iruka-sensei!'

The handsome brown haired Chuunin smiled at him as he scratched his nose. 'Welcome back to Konoha Naruto.' He crossed the tiny room in two steps with his long legs, kneeling down to pack Naruto's things neatly into his ANBU sack.

'How did you know I was back in Konoha?' Naruto said after the initial shock of his sudden arrival disappeared from his mind. A slight frown creased his face as he tried to remember if he had passed his teacher while delivering his mission report that morning.

'Ah, Hinata-chan told me about it.' Iruka said with a smile on his face. Naruto's smile faded and he turned to his backpack, the innocent comment hurting more than it seemed possible. _'I guess she was really happy I was back in town.' _Naruto thought with a depressed look on his face as he helped Iruka by passing him objects that had flown around the room like possessed things.

'There.' Iruka said, his voice turned serious as he began to tie the bag closed. 'So you're leaving already? I was hoping we could have dinner together like the old days.' Naruto glanced up at his teacher, a pang of guilt in his chest.

'I don't think this mission will be very long though, so I'll hold you to that soon Iruka-sensei!' He said with a winning smile.

Iruka smiled back. 'Great, just be back here in three months time.'

'Three months time?'

The brown haired teacher laughed. 'You have to pass your Chuunin exams remember?'

It was like a cold wind had breezed through the house as the skin on Naruto's neck crawled. 'How could I forget?' He said uneasily, his temptation half which looked like Naruto but with red eyes, fangs and claws began a monologue. _'We've been training for three years with a world renowned ninja! We've taken A and S rank missions for the last year or so! We're in every country's bingo book!' _Then it began to scream. _'AND WE'RE STILL GENIN RANKED!' _Naruto resisted the urge to crawl into a ball and mutter about the injustice of the entire world. His conscience half popped up with a reassuring smile. _'Relax, someone has to still be a Genin . . . even Kiba couldn't have beaten us to it.'_

'Is there anyone from my class that hasn't become a Chuunin yet?'

Iruka paused thinking. 'I don't think so . . . after you left Kiba was the first to pass along with Sasuke, Shino and Chouji . . .'

Naruto, his conscience and his temptation halves sunk into the deepest pits of despair at those words. Iruka lips were still moving so he tuned in again after wishing that he had attended that Chuunin exam in the Hidden Sand two years ago to Jiraiya's obscure hints about becoming a man . . . _'Which I had.' _Naruto thought as he blushed with a perverted snigger behind one hand in a very Kakashi-esque manner. He shook his head before getting back to blaming his teacher, curse Jiraiya and his ability to make the simplest things perverted!

'. . . Neji, Sasuke and the Sand siblings are all Jounin now I think.' The blonde froze once again and resisted the urge to cry like an eight year old girl and binge on cookies until he vomited. Iruka passed him his bag with a smile. 'Well anyway, good luck with your mission Naruto-kun and remember.'

'Don't worry, I'll be back soon.' Naruto interrupted with a cheerful smile as he closed the door behind him.

"**My god, I'm a tomato." - Adam West, 'Family Guy'**

Wandering around in the Government district . .

Naruto looked around, his eyes downcast as he thought of who the hell he knew that would fit the criteria that Tsunade had given him, another person who had to be Sakura and an established Jounin. _'Do I know anyone like that?' _ He had already dealt with the Accounting trolls for his mission allowance. It had been years since he had to apply for an allowance and those trolls had jumped him immediately for his inconsistency with things that he wanted subsidised from his last mission. _'I hate those snaggle toothed troll bastards with their grey skin and those ugly checked suits.' _

After that he had gone immediately to the Hidden Leaf's Bureaucracy to get the paperwork he needed for going with two other ninjas of such high level. Then he had to endure the bombardment of red tape that they had flung at him for getting it done at such short notice, earning him a date with the hot registrar's ugly friend. After that he had to fill out the fifty or so pages of paperwork and then he had to take care of Sakura's, then he had spotted Lee and there was an arm wrestle there and then. By then he was quite frankly buggered, not to mention there was still the annoying fact he _still _had to find someone to go with him. He looked up and spotted a familiar head of party ready hair from behind. He lifted his arm and began to wave.

'Hey Neji!'

"**My god, I'm a tomato." - Adam West, 'Family Guy'**

Neji was angry, pissed, brooding with the three ANG's fully activated; in short he was the sexiest thing walking the streets since the 4th Hokage. Every tension filled glance he sent made girls shiver but that wasn't on his mind at the moment. Every single one of Neji's thoughts was concentrated on finding a clue, any clue, to the whereabouts of his charge and cousin Hinata. It was an unusual change from its usual doom plotting of the destruction of Hyuuga Main house and a certain Uchiha scion.

The news had rapidly spread throughout the entire Hyuuga household and a squad of ANBU had been sent out already and, as well as that, a squad of Branch members had been readied. They were processing the paperwork with the trolls in accounting but so far there had been no progress. From his estimations it would be another three days before they were cleared and by then the trail would be cold.

Neji resisted the urge to lash out and break things but that was against the Hyuuga ways. As a Branch member, he should have been there looking after Hinata but he had slept in instead at her insistence. _'Why was she up so early anyway?'_ Rapid fire calculations started in his mind and with a flash of pure rage he came upon a thought._ 'Naruto had been the last one to see her.' _This random idea popped up in his mind and made him angrier, his rage was now an almost perceivable black aura around his body and it made the earlier incident between Sasuke and him seem like a cool summer breeze.

'_How long has she been gone? What was Naruto doing at the time and why didn't he try to save her? Is she hurt now? Is she hungry or cold? What would have happened if I had gone along?' _These were just a few of the thoughts going through the angst ridden Hyuuga's head as he strode along the rapidly emptying street. He glared behind him as he heard his name being called, he didn't even have to turn around to recognise that voice. Almost without his knowledge, his hands curled into fists and his eyes began to narrow. He only released his hands a few moments later when his nails were about to cut into the skin on his palms.

'Hey Neji!'

'Naruto.'

'I have a favour to ask you-!'

!WHUMP/BOOM! That was the sound of Neji's open palm hitting Naruto's left shoulder with a burst of chakra.

!CRASH! That was the sound of Naruto flipping himself backwards only to land on someone's pot plants as he avoided the second of Neji's attacks.

Naruto quickly got to his feet. 'What the hell was that for? I haven't seen you in three years and this is how you greet me?' His hand dropped to the kunai holster on his right leg instinctively and he began assessing the situation in front of him. All in all, it could've been worse.

Neji had just hit him with his family's Jyuuken fighting style, a combat style that relied on fast bursts of chakra channelled through a person's hand to deal destructive internal damage to a person's pressure points. It reminded him of the Chuunin exams all over again as he recalled how freakishly strong Neji was. He had gotten hit, but had managed to reduce the damage enough, so that it would only be a bruise the next day.

The previously bustling street had been emptied faster than a box of tissues at a weepy chick flick. If he needed to run there was a multitude of potential escape paths that he could have chosen ranging from the alley way to his left or simply vaulting onto the roof and running like a ninja.

An almost sad look came over Neji's face as he pulled out a kunai. 'Where were you when Hinata-sama needed you Naruto?' He said quietly, it was barely a whisper just barely audible so that only Naruto could hear the icy coldness and rising despair in his low voice. 'She trusted you to keep her safe didn't she? Now she's been taken by the Sound . . .'

Naruto broke the stare down with the silver eyed Hyuuga, his eyes darkening. 'I couldn't do anything Neji.' Neji continued to watch him and he noticed things that he hadn't on his first glance, Naruto was acting differently today from his annoyingly chipper self. His entire body language was like that of a kicked dog's, his eyes were almost blank and his smile kept wavering, a pale reflection of his normal self. Naruto looked up suddenly and Neji fought to keep himself from looking away. 'Believe me, if I could've done something I would have. I'm sorry Neji, I did all I could and it still wasn't enough. If I could take her place I would do it in a heartbeat.'

'Your good intentions are doing nothing Naruto.'

'I know that's why Tsunade gave me permission to form a three man team with Sakura and an established Jounin.' Naruto looked Neji straight in the eye. 'I was hoping you would come along.'

'She's on a mission to the Hidden Sand.'

'Don't worry I took care of the paperwork already.' Naruto said with a slight smile. Neji raised an eyebrow, Sakura wasn't know for taking missions now that she had partially taken over the Godaime's roles training medic nins but then again Naruto was her old team mate. He then made a mental note to finish the paperwork when he got back to Konoha.

What Neji didn't know was, what Naruto meant by taking care of it was that he had given the paperwork in, complete with Sakura's forged signature, to the mission 'In" tray and left a details of the mission in her underwear drawer . . . he had done it because Sakura had gotten into the habit of bathing after every mission, it wasn't like he had _purposely _gone through her underwear.

Neji paused weighting up his options, he was standing around doing nothing and it would be better than just sitting around but then there was the fact that Naruto was an idiot. He had to come along, just to make sure he didn't kill himself. _'Keep dreaming Neji, you'd go if Lee and Gai-sensei went with you cause it's for Hinata.'_

'Fine someone has to look after you.'

"**My god, I'm a tomato." - Adam West, 'Family Guy'**

At Konoha's East Gate

'. . .' Neji said with distaste on his face as he looked at the first Konoha's military defences. One of three gates barring entry into the Fire Countries capital, it was a highly defensible point allowing people into and out of the village. In combination with the reconstructed wall that surrounded the fair city like a shell around a pearl, it was manned by inbuilt sentry towers every ten metres which naturally had a clearance space of five metres in front of the wall to allow sentries more time to spot any dangers to the fiercely protected village.

The South Gate had the most traffic out of three with the majority of travellers going through its wooden doors. Another reason for its popularity was it opened onto a breath taking view of Konoha and as a gentle reminder of its military force, the proud spire of the Hokage Tower as well as the Hokage monument being one of the first things in view.

West and East Gate were rarely used as the former led straight into the forest and the road leading to it was ill kept at best while the latter led straight to a river and was used as a dock more than anything else. They were both regularly patrolled for their previous marshalling importance during conflicts, West Gate was in fact, one of the first points breached during the Sand invasion and so was now kept well patrolled for this exact reason.

There was no North Gate as the only northern entrance to the city was by climbing the Hokage monument, a feat that took more time than it was worth. It was also heavily patrolled as its great height allowed for a strategic bonus with its impassable sheer cliffs as well as its barren plains allowing sentries to see for miles and spot any approaching forces. It was also the only thing stopping forces from the north from directly attacking the civilian districts that had grown around the Hokage Tower.

'We have to get through this hellhole fast.' Neji said to himself.

It wasn't like he particularly hated the East Gate, it was just an eyesore with the myriad of bossy merchants that annoyed the hell out of him. Even now the only thing that allowed him to be left unharmed by their greedy hands were his obvious status as a Jounin and his imposing prescience. Naruto had a harder time but his obvious lack of money warded off most of the merchants with their sixth sense to make money. As much as he hated going through the East Gate it was probably the fastest way to the Hidden Sound, following the meandering river to its source at Tsukihime go was easier than getting permission to climb the Hokage Monument.

Apparently even some merchants will do scam any sucker from his money as was happening right behind Neji's back.

Naruto looked on at the vendor cautiously, he was a very cheerful, almost slimily charismatic rat-like man pushing a loaded cart with the words "Stab-Me-Eye-With-A-Kunai Dibuura's Fresh Sushi." There was a cigar clamped in his mouth and he was wearing a modified Chuunin jacket with more than the usual allocation of pockets. The Chuunin was hawking sushi and other 'fresh' fish products at the top of his considerable lungs with every other breath of air, not used on his cancer stick.

'Are you sure this salmon is fresh?' The blonde said taking a closer look at the sushi, maybe it was his imagination but the seaweed looked odd, not the shiny colour or the dull colour expected if it was made strangely but some other physical characteristic he couldn't name, not dull or lustrous, it didn't reflect light or absorb it, it looked neither soft or hard. It was entirely in its own category, for some reason it made his skin crawl and he was oddly fascinated.

'Absolutely, 100 fresh Mist Country salmon!' Dibuura beamed moving closer although Naruto moved away, even he was dimly aware of the dangers of second hand smoke inhalation somewhere in his ramen soaked brain.

'How much?' Naruto said indicating at a lunch sized box of sushi packed to the brim with sushi and other bizarre looking delicacies that he had never seen in his entire life, despite living off junk food from the age of five or so and being on a first name basis with all the vendors in the area. The blonde picked up the box and began to take out his green frog pouch bulging with coins and the odd coyly peeking note.

'120 ryo.' The vendor said holding out his hand.

'!' Naruto said jumping back as if his hand had been bitten, dropping the box. 'That's crazy, I can get twice this much for 100 ryo!"

'110 then.' He said stubbornly.

Naruto continued looking at him as if he were crazy. 'No way! 90!' He said slapping the coins down and making a grab for the box.

'100, I'll sell it for less and that's stabbing me eye with a kunai.' The vendor said with an apologetic smile, his hand twitched for his hip holster as if ready to prove the claim. Naruto paused before reluctantly handing over the money, grumbling under his breath. Suddenly the vendor was all Cheshire Cat smiles and he gave an almost running leap to hassle another spellbound tourist.

'It might be a while to get to the Fire border.' Neji mumbled as glared at something in the distance, absolutely refusing to use the large map in his backpack that Hinata had brought for him on his Chuunin promotion. No way was he going to take it out, that would be admitting defeat and that was downright un-Hyuuga as well as unmanly.

'Sure, let's get going then.' Naruto said with a grimace as he cautiously squirted soy sauce from its tiny fish shaped bottle onto his salmon sushi._ 'Something is not right.' _Naruto though to himself as he bit into the sushi, he took another look at his purchase, then it struck him. _'Salmon is pinky red. . . even when cooked . . . so why is mine white?' _There were so many things wrong with that disturbing thought, the least of which was despite its odd colour it still _tasted _like raw salmon, the only thing Naruto could do was hastily swallow the sticky lump in his throat and cautiously close the lid to the lunchbox.

In an eerily accurate gesture, until Naruto remembered Neji could see in a sphere around himself, Neji knocked the sushi out of his hands with click of distaste.

The sushi bounced . . . twice.

Naruto was about to comment when Neji picked him up and hustled him into an alleyway. 'Ignore the food, let's get going.'

'Okay!' Naruto began to march down the street.

'Idiot.' Neji sighed and grabbed Naruto by the back of his shirt, Naruto gave him an almost hurt look and opened his mouth. 'We have to leave Konoha,' Neji paused to gain Naruto's attention. '_In disguise._'

'Why?' Naruto said giving Neji an strange look.

'Didn't she say that the mission was to be kept secret? Wouldn't those guards think something would be strange since you just came back and then you left instantly for another unknown mission?' Neji said logically.

One blonde eyebrow rose as Naruto was thinking, he bit his lip. 'Well I would have thought it was because we were still recovering our numbers. We still haven't recovered fully from the Sand invasion and since then we've all been on twice as many mission as we would take in previous years to make it look like we have the normal number of shinobi working.' Naruto frowned before adding casually. 'So the other countries wouldn't attack us and all and it wouldn't be weird cause missions are always kept secret to ensure optimal performance.'

' . . .' An incredulous silence was the only thing emitting from Neji's mouth. His reasoning made perfect sense, which was very out of character for the blonde genin. Naruto's thoughts were commonly known to be based on emotion rather than logical backing, which was why Neji's face was currently twitching. He snapped out of it rather quickly though, he didn't want the blonde knowing he might be given further credit in the future. 'Well it's better to be safe than sorry.' Neji said with a nod of his handsome head. His hands formed a seal and with a cloud of smoke, Neji had transformed himself into the stereotypical clothing of a Fire Country farmer.

'Okay!' Naruto said with a grin, he formed his own hand seal and with another cloud of smoke, the blonde transformed himself.

'. . . _wow._'

Once again the only thing that emerged from Neji's mouth was an incredulous silence, hanging out with Naruto had that effect on most people. The Hyuuga's mouth had fallen open which was perfectly reasonable, it wasn't often you saw what your friend looked like as a member of the opposite sex . . . dressed entirely in their birthday suit. So Neji bent down to pick up a rock, shaking off the worrying thought that Naruto looked half alright as a chick.

'Hey.'

Naruto turned around with a winsome smile on his frighteningly attractive female visage. Without missing a beat, the Hyuuga threw the rock and nailed Naruto right between the eyes. 'Transform some appropriate clothes on and let's get our story straight, we're farmers who just sold out goods in the city okay?'

'Okay.' His hands lifted up to his naked breasts and formed a hand seal. This time, he reappeared wearing clothes to Neji's immense relief. Naruto began to saunter his way down the narrow street to the gate with what he clearly thought was a hip swaying walk.

'_Yeah right, Lee has more of a chance with Sakura.' _He thought with a critical eye. Naruto was a crappy transformer. He was still walking with a manly off balance swaying, when he wasn't teetering on top of his platforms that is. He also wasn't acting like the shy country girl he was supposed to be, he kept a healthy bounce in his step which attracted keen glances from all around the dock. In all truths, Naruto looked more like he was more inclined to ripping his clothes off and dancing like a stripper than gazing in awe at the big city delights. Neji grabbed his arm and leant closer, hoping to correct Naruto before it was too late.

'Neji ♥, I didn't know you felt like that.' Naruto said with a coy giggle, smiling enticingly as he batted his eyelashes at the older ninja. Neji glared his _'So wrong'_ frown down at him and continued walking towards the guard, his mouth set in a thin line. The blonde frowned. 'Seriously dude, let go of my arm. Quit touching me!' Naruto began to push Neji away whilst Neji continued holding on like a limpet to its rock, he continued walking and Naruto began to protest. 'Let go! Help! RAPE!'

The guard at the gate snapped his head up at the shout, in front of him were an oddly matched pair. A dusty looking merchant who had a considerable pot belly with a battered sunhat on his head, he was struggling with an attractive young blonde in a blue summer kimono. He started to run over at the continuing struggles, with one hand on his hip holster.

'Quit acting like a girl, I mean act more like a girl.' Neji snapped at Naruto. Naruto stopped with a quizzical expression on his face, one eye floated up and to the left as he pondered the confusing statement. Neji's Byakugan kept working even while he was in a different form so he quickly caught sight of the approaching guard. His dowdy merchant's face slipped for a split second as his lip curled and his eyes hardened with the death dealing glare he sent Naruto for being a sook. 'Just follow my lead.' He hissed to Naruto.

'Is anything wrong ma'am?' The guard said suspicious, not liking the old man. He was dishevelled with layer upon layer of outdated clothing on his portly body, he looked like he had fallen on hard times recently. He certainly smelled like it, it was something like stale smoke and ripened body musk. The farmer had an unpleasant glower on his sunburnt crusty looking face.

The girl standing next to him who was looking at him curiously looked young enough to be his hot eligible daughter. She was quite the hottie with a rockin' body, she was petite but she had an awesome body made from sleek curves revealed with the clingy kimono she had belted around herself. He had been watching her dishevelled blonde self every since she had stepped out with that wavering flirty look on her face that she sent with every flick of her tousled silky locks.

The guard frowned as his eyes lit on her (awesome) body, his suspicions of foul play seemed to be right. He could see a darkening bruise around her full mouth as well as a reddish patch on her shoulder which was quickly fading away. An almost smile was on his face, maybe he could act the hero for the blonde hottie and then who knows?

'Oh nothing sir, daddy was just saying how good them sales were today. Weren't ya daddy?' Naruto cooed in what sounded like his normal voice in a high falsetto, once again Neji was eerily aware that despite the fact that it was weird, it sounded completely natural. Naruto's now pretty hand complete with a French manicure, slipped over Neji's forearm in a delicate manner, digging his nails in as he spoke.

'Sure was sweetie pie.' Naruto looked enviously on as Neji continued to drawl on, he was a damn fine shinobi. He didn't sound like the spoiled rich kid he really was, instead his whole demeanour had changed from the stick-up-arse snob to a completely at odds thumbs-in-pants country hick. Just from the voice, the blonde expected Neji to hawk out a large black lump of 'baccy to the side.

The guard pointed at the bruises on Naruto's fair skin. 'What are those then?'

All three of them started to concentrate on the bruises on Naruto's exposed shoulder. Needless to say, Naruto was feeling a little uncomfortable, after his initial astonishment because he seriously did not remember how he had gotten the bruise, Naruto replied in a high, trilling voice. 'Oh this? I might've slipped and fell, silly me.' The pretty blonde than proceeded to laugh in a grating nails-on-blackboard style, which utterly enchanted the guard despite it's harsh sound.

'Let me get that for you.' The guard said in a seductive voice. He reached over to pull the neck of Naruto's kimono back up and whilst he was doing so, brushed his fingers against the soft silky skin on her neck. She gave a little shiver and the guard couldn't help thinking. _'Oh yeah she wants me.'_

What was actually happening was Naruto had given a shiver of revulsion at the guy-on-guy touch and resisted the urge to projectile vomit. _'Okay this is weird . . .' _

Neji was also starting to feel uncomfortable, hell the entire situation was heading to wrong town and even Rock Lee and Gai-sensei running in and declaring their love wouldn't defuse the situation. So being the genius he was, he decided to wrap up the situation. 'If theys, nothing else.' Neji gave a realistic hacking sound as spat to the side, before wiping his mouth on his arm. 'The missus be wanting us back in time for dinner.'

'What were you in the village for?'

'Markets.' They replied at the same time.

'Oh? What were you selling?' The guard said politely, although he was actually busy ogling Naruto right now.

'Ramen/Tomatoes.' Neji and Naruto said at the same time before looking at one another with incredulous looks.

'What? Wouldn't they have died from the recent cold snaps?' The guard said with suspicion. He shrugged inwardly at the blonde's expression, she was after all just another pretty blonde and as they say 'boobs or brains.' So the guard just ignored the strange comment to get himself another eyeful of Naruto's goodies.

'_What's with that perverted look?' _Naruto was becoming aware of the guard's intense scrutiny of his breasts and had to fight the urge to snap his fingers and say _'Hello, my eyes are up here!' _Instead he just crossed his arms and started plotting unfortunate demises for the man.

'Whut mah daughter means to say is that, she makes the ramen by hand herself like. The tomaters are special hydra'ponic like.' Neji simultaneously kicked Naruto discretely and kicked himself mentally. _'Ramen crops? I'm stuck with an idiot!'_

The guard nodded. 'Do you have any left?'

'No, we sold them all I'm afraid.' Naruto said with another grating laugh.

'_Ouch.' _Neji winced before he reminded himself of the urgency of the mission they were about to undertake but if Naruto laughed like that once more, he would have to resort to violence.

'We'll save you some next time.'

'See that you do sweetheart.' The guard purred at Naruto.

'_ZOMG is that guy hitting on me?' _Naruto started to sweat anime style with cascades of sweat flowing down his back. _'I know I make a hot chick and he did cop a feel earlier but . . .' _It was at this time when another evil voice butted in. **'He's okay but not our type, now Sasuke, pwroar.' **Naruto agreed before he understood what he was getting himself into. _'Hell yeah!'_ The blonde did a double take. _'What am I saying? Maybe he's just being friendly . . . yeah that's it.' _ Naruto's eyes narrowed suddenly, in a sinister Sakura style. _'But if he tries anything, it's on.' _

'Is there anything else you want officer?' Neji was watching the chemical interaction between the guard and Naruto and feeling, if it were possible, more traumatised. _'Mental note, pitch tent away from Naruto.' _

'Everything seems to be in order.' The guard stepped aside and opened the gate for them, waving them by. The pair both gave half bows before hastening through the gate. Naruto was halfway through the gateway when,

Thwack

Naruto jumped around, in shock, at the unexpected contact to his backside. The guard gave him a cheeky grin and winked. The molested blonde stood still as his brain processed what had just happened frame by frame and identified the full ramifications of just what had happened. It all lead to one thought: The guard just whacked my arse.

. . . **the**

. . . **guard**

. . . **just**

. . . **whacked**

. . . **my**

. . . **ARSE**!

Oh, it was definitely on. Naruto reached into his kimono and pulled out the kunai that he left in the folds of his robe and started to run for the guard. Neji casually grabbed out and hoisted Naruto by the back of his robe. He then batted Naruto's kunai out of hand and began to walk down the road leading out of Konoha.

'Leave your boyfriend alone Naruto.'

Naruto was quite literally breathing fire. 'No way, not until he'd dead! He touched my arse! I'm a dude! And he touched my arse! That's wrong in so many ways there's no word for it!'

'Yeah there is, it's called yaoi.'

'!' Naruto was starting to get angry and he released his transformation, turning to start on Neji.

'Naruto.' Neji said sharply. Naruto stopped at the tone in his voice. 'The trails probably gone cold by now.'

'Right.' Naruto stopped and cooled down, taking a deep breath before asking in a normal tone of voice. 'So where are we heading?'

'Tsukihime go.'

Naruto felt a twinge of recognition at the name, the only thing he remembered about it was that it was a small mountain town. 'Why there?' He asked curiously.

'There was only two of them right? They won't be packing many supplies and they would have exhausted supplies just coming here, they would have to rest or make sure Hinata stayed unconscious. It's one of the bigger border towns, big enough that enough people stop by without being recognised which is why we're heading there.'

'Sure.'

'There's also a storm headed there so if we get there fast we should be able to catch up to them.' Neji was staring out to the distance when he was doing so and Naruto could see his Byakugan was activated. The blonde looked up to see clear blue skies, he shrugged, Neji was trained to notice this kind of thing and he was rarely wrong.

'Let's go.' Before they left Naruto glared at the closed gates of Konoha, muttering under his breath. 'If that guard tries it when we get back, I'm going to snap his arse so fast he'll be feeling it last week.'

"**My god, I'm a tomato." - Adam West, 'Family Guy'**

'Why are we stopping there, Kabuto-san?' Kimimaro said for what must have been the six hundredth time in that annoyingly deadpan voice of his.

Kabuto ground his teeth, shouldering Hinata into a more comfortable position on his shoulder. Instead of carrying Hinata like he was supposed to be doing he had just been silent and annoying, even when that squad of ANBU hunter nin had attacked them, he had just stood there. The entire trip had been like this since Kimimaro had found out that they weren't heading straight back to the Hidden Sound, it was 'Kabuto-san,' with that annoying sneer in his voice. The Kaguya was acting like an adolescent teenager, he sure as hell looked like one, after all he didn't look like he had aged a single bit in the last six years. Not to mention the fact he kept repeating that statement like a whiny kid who kept saying, 'Are we there yet?'

The medic nin sneered, it wasn't like he was unaware of the fact that Kimimaro was suffering from severe separation anxiety being away from Orochimaru for so long. Chances were he would cry himself to sleep later that night or something, the first time Orochimaru had gone away in search of some obscure jutsu, the boy had stood there waiting for days. In the end they had to knock him out and put him on fluids to restore his already fragile health.

'I need to get medical herbs and Soothers for Orochimaru-sama's cold.'

Kimimaro voice held a bit of scorn as if to say '_What are you stupid or something?' _ 'Why don't we grow them back in the Sound? Or why don't we have them in our supplies?'

Kabuto sighed again. 'Because, there's none left or we can't plant them for some reason.' He tried to think of another reason for the second statement but failed, he lamely replied. 'Orochimaru-sama likes his Soothers.'

There was an awkward pause as they both ignored the sheer oddity of the statement, Kabuto was the first to recover. 'There are five herbs I need goldthread, meadowsweet, wolfberry, lotus and most importantly burnet.'

'Wolfberry, I know that. We get them from the Hidden Grass!' Kimimaro interrupted.

'You should, its used in the tonics I give you, both you and Orochimaru-sama needs lots of it. It aids in strengthening the body and aiding wasting diseases.' Kabuto shook his head. 'I prefer the ones from this region, besides I don't have to pay for these. The meadowsweet and the lotus you should be able to recognise, they'll both be growing in the lake. Meadowsweet has distinct grooved leaves and there should be some with white-yellowish flowers by now. Get all the flowers you can. For the lotus, grab the leaves and the flowers as well.'

Kimimaro interrupted, 'What do we need lotuses for?'

Kabuto glared at him, 'For their haemostatic abilities.' Kabuto noticed his blank look. 'Its helps reduce bleeding, which is what the burnet is for as well. Those have feathery leaves and small purple flowers, grab all the plant if you can but make sure you leave some behind. The goldthread would probably be the hardest to find right now, it's a small plant with small white flowers, with pink stamen. The leaves look like enlarged parsley leaves the wild kind not the domesticated kind. Get the rhizomes, the roots. That's it, Orochimaru-sama needs these plants badly, you wouldn't like to keep these from him would you? He would be very upset.'

Kabuto watched in satisfaction as Kimimaro paled, upset was putting it mildly, Orochimaru would probably rip him a new mouth just for the hell of it, then again he had done that to one of the Hunter-nin Kabuto had brought back to see if jutsus that originated from an orifice could possibly be done without one, needless to say it didn't work. Kabuto smiled as he thought about Kimimaro being reduced to a bloody pulp.

Kimimaro looked up a glint of almost maniacal religious fever in his eyes. 'Let's get going then Orochimaru-sama needs us.'

Kabuto rolled his eyes. Why couldn't Orochimaru choose normal people for his vessels? They all had to be pretty boys with superiority complexes and angsty pasts involving dead clans. All looks and no brains as shown by Kimimaro, Sasuke was even worse if possible, the boy was a complete PMS-ing diva. They all had to be broody antiheros didn't they? It was ridiculous but then it seemed all the strong ones were like that. Look at the Mist's Seven Swordsman, Itachi, basically all the Akatsuki, it really pissed Kabuto off sometimes.

Kabuto pointed up the mountain, 'We should find most of the plants up on Mount Akira but first we should get some supplies.'

"**My god, I'm a tomato." - Adam West, 'Family Guy'**

Back in Konoha . . .

'It's settled then.' Hiashi said clapping his hands together. 'While the paperwork is being processed, you and Rena will leave first and later on our ANBU squad will join up okay?'

'I'll be back soon.' Sasuke said with a proud smirk. Rena bowed to the head of her family before hastening after the younger Jounin.

'Uchiha-kun!' Sasuke turned slightly to see the Branch house messenger from earlier run up beside him, she was dressed in standard Jounin clothes with the only exception being the Hyuuga clan symbol on her sleeve and her forehead protector around her neck. 'Have you decided on a destination?'

'Tsukihime go.' Sasuke politely answered, she might have been a Hyuuga but she was also a woman and he had always been brought up to be nice to women. He had based the location from his personal experiences when he had defected to the Sound six years ago, they had stopped there and it had seemed that his Hidden Sound guards had been well known around there, under different alias that is.

'Sounds good, a neutral border town where the Sound are inclined to buy supplies from, because of its ask no questions attitude. One of the ANBU also noted that the men who kidnapped Hinata-sama used an herbal medicine made from wolfberries, Tsukihime go is one of the few places which grows them commercially. You have a sharp mind Uchiha-san.' She looked up at the sky, her eyes narrowing. 'It looks like it's about to rain soon, we'd better get going.'

"**My god, I'm a tomato." - Adam West, 'Family Guy'**

In a mountain range near the Fire/Sound border . . .

Naruto took a deep breath of fresh mountain air, it was at a higher altitude than Konoha so the air was a little thinner here but not enough so that it was difficult for him to breath. He couldn't help relaxing in the peaceful serenity of the mountains, even Neji who had been frowning more than usual was more relaxed now that they had gotten to the peaceful village. Naruto rubbed his hands together, he hadn't packed for colder weather so he had just stacked more clothes on. He blew on his fingers before he looked around in wonder, it was cold it made up for it in atmosphere.

The blonde had taken mission to all sorts of places before, but not to such a secluded place as this. It was so quiet compared to Konoha. Everyone here was very friendly, as they had both noticed, when they had gone around asking about people who came around to visit them and it smelled awesome, like pine mist. The freshly crushed pine needles that stuck to his boots sent him a clean, crisp reminder with every step he took.

The scenery was gorgeous as well, Konoha was beautiful in the way of really big cities with its sparkling lights at night, the mixture of old and new architecture and the bustling vibe that all its inhabitants had, but this place was like civilisation and nature all at once. He could see the sharp relief of the mountains framing the town and it was like Konoha too, being entirely surrounded by lush, verdant forest besides water on one side.

They had taken a small break earlier and visited the lake for which the town had been named and it had been pretty fun. Throwing a water filled balloon at Neji had been the highlight of his afternoon, although it wasn't so cool when Neji had formed hand seals for a simple water jutsu that ducked him under.

'It's so pretty here, huh Neji. Neji?' He turned and noted the worried look on the Jounin's face. 'Something the matter?'

'Do you want to check into an inn? I just have a bad feeling about this.' Neji said, he turned to take a better look at the storm grey clouds gathering at the edge of the horizon, he then looked up noticing the dark clouds overhead. Something was wrong but he couldn't put his finger on it, the cloud movement was faster than what would normally be expected and the rain they had encountered earlier, if it was any indication of the approaching storm, it was going to be a flood storm.

Naruto nodded turning to look at the huge puffy clouds as well. It was already getting dark and the wind had picked up, tousling their hair with every sharp gust as well as sending shivers through his body. 'How about there?' Naruto said as he pointed at sign a little ways down the street. 'The Lunar Cry sounds as good a place as any.'

The pair walked down to the street with Neji easily taking the lead with his long legs despite Naruto's exuberance. Neji got to the door first and began to knock after discovering the door was locked, despite it's vacancy sign flashing on and off.

The door swung open, Naruto surged forwards eagerly as bright light flooded the dark street. The room seemed cozy, there was a huge crackling fire lit inside the room and he could smell bread toasting and something being roasted in herbs which were making his mouth water. In the doorway, there was the silhouette of a scowling old woman as well as a slender woman who was coming up behind her.

'Yes?'

'Excuse me but is there-' Naruto began.

A familiar head popped up from the couch in front of the fire, a girl's voice rising in wonder. 'Neji?'

Neji looked over Naruto's spiky head, looking the girl straight in the eyes, no emotion on his face.

'Tenten.'

"**My god, I'm a tomato." - Adam West, 'Family Guy'**

At Tsukihime go's Northern gate . . .

It was a small clearing in the immense pine forest that blanketed the mountain range like a thick green beard. It opened out to a large stone wall and a wooden gate which creaked on rusted hinges with every gust of wind. Every light puff sent a profusion of red-brown leaves dancing briefly in the air before falling lifelessly once again. There was a sign with the words "Welcome to Tsukihime Go!" proudly emblazoned on its chipped, faded banner. It also had the red glass symbol proclaiming the country of its alliance and military protection, Fire.

The sun had just set and the stirrings of night creatures had already begun to stir. It was intensely cold and this had already given way to pale mist, which floated around the clearing, giving it an air of eerie abandon. Everything was still besides the screech of bats overhead and the soothing whisper of the wind through the pines, making them sigh with every breeze. The huge looming trees were so closely huddled around the small clearing that there was no indication of the road beyond the enormous trees and the dark shadows cast in black pools around them, only added to the bleakness of the scene. It could be easily believed that no one had stepped into the clearing in years.

'Is this the place?' A deep voice said. Despite the quietness of the voice, the sound shattered the darkness and tranquillity of the clearing. It somehow made the eerie scene more tangible as if it were actually real rather than a scene out of a badly written novella, despite the equally cliché disembodied voice that came out of nowhere and everywhere.

A tall man in the black cloak seemed to melt out of the thick shadows, beside him a similarly garbed companion appeared. The taller of the pair was facing the shorter seeming to defer to him in the situation they were facing.

'Yes. It's almost night time and it looks like it's about to rain. We'd better get indoors.' The wind blew intensely and the hat that he was wearing was almost blown off, he reached with long elegant fingers to brush back silken hair. Each of the words had been slowly spoken in a calm unhurried manner, as if he wanted to waste no words or reveal any hint of emotion.

'Want to get dinner first? I heard there's a good bar around these parts called the Red Disc.' A glimpse of a predatory grin was seen underneath the straw brim of his hat, before he also reached up to tug his thick cloak a little closer around himself.

The shorter man turned to give a cool glance to his companion. 'Sure.' They both moved forwards at the exact same time, their steps in exact synchronisation speaking of their long travels together.

Then there was nothing. It was like no one had been in the lonely little clearing on the far edge of the town known as Tsukihime go, as if to fulfil the second's prophetic words it began to rain. First it was just a light drizzling from the thick clouds overhead but this soon grew until it was a gushing torrential flow which soaked the area in seconds, making the trees seem a little smaller from the immense weight of the water. Soon there was nothing left of their presence as even their faint footsteps washed away, there was however one last thing, the minute chiming of bells in the wind.

"**My god, I'm a tomato." - Adam West, 'Family Guy'**

A/N- ) I'm quite happy with the chapter, it turned out longer than I though, seven more pages than the original with an extra scene. I hope you enjoy it as much as I had fun writing it, despite the sheer genius of JAJapster and The Happy Stalker Ball's work, I'm happy with the way I wrote it. I just hope the length of the chapter makes up for the long introduction of my news.

Review! Review! PM me! Contact is good! I lord it over my friends in school who get better grades than me in English but have no reviewers! MWHA HA HA! Take that Harry Potter writers! If you don't remember this, for every reviewer that doesn't review another Mary Sue is born, OMG there's another one! X (

Review damn it, review!

I will leave you with this thought until the next blue moon when I update-

'Is your hair too tired to party?'


	6. Rainy Day

BMR13- Chapter 6! Does it worry anyone that Naruto people are the same age as people from Bleach and yet, no one is muscular at all? I mean Sasuke's supposed to able to break ground by punching it . . . and we all saw his body with that hideous shirt of his . . . Sai too . . . and Hidan? I adore Hidan, he's hot, makes me laugh like Deidara .

I apologize to Happy Stalker Ball who is now in civilisation once again and JAJapster who has waited half a year for this update . . . oops? I'll finish the other half of the update soon I promise!

I have joined a religion . . . I was once neutral, than forced Christian, than agnostic, then Buddhist-atheist now . . . I am a proud member of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a Pastafarian. If you have no idea what I'm on about, check out it out on wikipedia and read our Gospel as well.

Wahoo!- **Krazy Kitsune, Mokusei4, JAJapster, Tears of Insanity14**

Promotions D: **Tears of Insanity, **is a new writer who is writing a Sasu/Hina fic, check it out and give advice like I did D, I found them via this forum room for helping of new authors . . . I would also like to advertise Letta's awesome work, if someone can write a fic involving Sasuke's mom's resurrection and Sasuke, Itachi and Orochimaru being owned by said mother . . . and write it well . . . you had better go read it!

Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto, the basic idea that all underground lairs contain zombies or River dance. I am so not making fun of either 'Psycho' or Gaara . . . okay? I do, however, make fun of those religious bands that say stuff like "W.W.J.D?" which if you didn't know means: what would Jesus do? Everyone loves making fun of it, like the Order of the Stick's Durkon's W.W.T.D? (What would Thor do?) hopefully it does more for this character than Durkon . . . who tried to do what Thor would do, break out of prison with his divine strength, return to Asgard, woo women and get drunk D.

"**What the jizz?"**

'Hachoo!' Kabuto sneezed, cursing his luck for having been chosen for the stupid mission of kidnapping the Hyuuga girl. He also regretted mentioning to Kimimaro why they had to stop by Tsukihime go which was why Kabuto was walking around, catching a cold, at the god forsaken hour of 9pm looking for the ingredients for the pain killer that Orochimaru and Kimimaro drank like water. He also regretted having ignored his mother's advice in becoming a ninja but that was a completely different issue.

The grey haired medic nin took off his glasses once more to wipe off the water that pelted down with the force of dancing elephants. He sighed for the umpteenth time that evening as his glasses fogged up once more and he had to repeat the wearying process again. _'This wouldn't happen in my lab. I would have all I needed.' _He turned to glare some more at his stoic companion who was searching for yet another patch of plants. _'He would be passed out getting pumped full of drugs once more, and,' _Kabuto sighed again. _'I would be warm.'_

It was with a sickening pang that Kabuto suddenly realised he missed the Hidden Sound village, despite the fact it was quite literally a hole, he missed it, like the feeling of dryness in his water soaked socks. At home, he'd be working on making new medicines whilst secretly playing Freecell on his computer or more often than not, acting like an unpaid psychiatrist to Orochimaru and his other troubled companions.

As dull and tedious as his work was back in the Hidden Sound, it was a lot better than gathering plants with a pale pretty boy with more problems than a maths textbook. Kabuto groaned, rolling his eyes and after all this he had to track down Itachi and convince him it was in his best interests to join the Hidden Sound as Orochimaru's consort.

As a general rule of thumb, the more powerful the ninja the more laid back they were. Itachi being the prodigal son of an Uchiha he was, was no exception to this rule. Whilst he wasn't the most talkative or gregarious of people, he was still quite easy to get along with despite his taboo areas of his previous citizenship of Konoha (which he charmingly referred to as 'a stagnant backwater filled with inbred white eyed freaks,'), families, stupidity, fan girls, mushy stuff, chick flicks and badly dubbed anime, nothing beyond the usual for a missing nin.

Uchiha Itachi was what many people believed to be the ultimate stereotype of a badass. He had an aloof, uninterested air around him which combined with his inherent mystery, brooding mannerisms, incredible off the charts intelligence, pale skin and movie star good looks made him the ultimate badass/ loner/ misunderstood guy.

Hell the guy was so mysterious, even after all the years of Kisame and Itachi working together, the only personal thing his companion knew about the Uchiha was his birthday was on the 9th of June and his favourite food was dango. It was still a favourite joke amongst the Akatsuki that even Itachi had no idea why he really killed off his entire clan.

His partner on the other hand was his complete polar opposite.

Hoshigaki Kisame was a Hidden Mist ninja as well as being one of the exulted Mist's Seven Swordsman, or at least he was. Kisame, like all the Akatsuki, was a missing nin, a person who had left or been banished from their country of birth. Kisame, like his companion Itachi, was a laid back guy but he was known for having a quick temper when anyone made 'fish' jokes in his hearing.

The simple reason for this was, despite the fact that he was in all the right ways tall, dark and built, Kisame had the ill fortune of having skin that was a sickly grey-blue tinge similar to that of a dead corpses', had little slits on his throat which suspiciously looked like gills, beady fish eyes and sharp pointy teeth which he liked to show off in a toothy grin. In short he had the potential to scare both little children and grown men into wetting their pants at his sheer repulsiveness. Kisame was indeed incredibly ugly and he didn't help his case by using mostly water based jutsu, could summon sharks, possessed a huge sword called the Samehada which shaved skin off like shark skin, liked sushi and smelled a little like a fish market.

Despite his scary face, he was one of the nicest guys Kabuto had ever met always willing to help out a friend and quite honourable too like most of the Akatsuki. Despite the fact that many people admitted to liking a good personality rather than looks, Kisame sure didn't have any fangirls, in fact he scared them off like a shark based repellent.

Itachi didn't seem to care about his strange habits which were quite trivial once you thought about it, they all helped to scare off his own rabid fangirls which pleased him greatly. Fan girls despite being fearless in their huge packs were easily scared off by the hulking sharkman's predatory grin. The few who did get past him were soon put off romancing the spiffy Uchiha once they realised Kisame and Itachi were practically never parted. Kisame was an effective mood killer especially as he liked to grin insanely in the background and refer to his Samehada affectionately as 'Mother.' The blue skinned man was an incredible fangirl deterrent however there was still one that even he couldn't get rid of.

Orochimaru.

During the time that Kabuto and his master Orochimaru were a part of the criminal organization, the Akatsuki, the snake man had made every moment a textbook example of repressed sexual frustration straight from a Bollywood movie where the ugly girl sighs, acts coy and flirty to get the guy but never seems to do it for some odd reason . . .

Itachi tried his best to ignore it, like he did with everything, but even Itachi the wonder ninja couldn't ignore the fact that every nanosecond with Orochimaru had more innuendo than a group of sexually active band geeks talking. It was always, 'Do you want to see my **snake**?' and other disturbing comments and even Kabuto was retching from the amount of times Orochimaru was conveniently changing whilst Itachi passed by.

The straw that broke the camel's back was when Itachi had gotten back from a highly annoying intelligence mission in the Hidden Sand and he had walked in to find someone in his bed. That person was of course, Orochimaru.

He was lying buck naked except for some suggestively placed rose petals. While that thought in itself was already traumatising enough, Itachi's room had also been changed from its austere black and white settings, to a more seductive red make out room with more candles than a church, liberal amounts of scattered rose petals, chilled wine in a corner and the blaring sounds of 'I was made for loving you.' by Kiss desecrating his beloved stereo system.

That was one of the more fascinating, albeit disturbing, rumours circulating around Akatsuki batcave when Orochimaru had been unceremoniously ousted. There were other more mundane things that everyone thought were more likely to have occurred such as the high maintenance diva pairing of Orochimaru and Sasori and their infamous bickering slowly poisoning their friendship. Then again the Akatsuki, notably Deidara, Hidan and Kisame, loved spreading a good rumour. His master had retaliated by childishly keeping his Akatsuki ring which still was a sore point to this day, a reminder which caused the remaining members to cheerfully beat down on the Snake Sannin whenever the opportunity reared its head. Itachi was one of the Nine who frequently took this opening.

Kabuto looked up and an ironic smirk lit his face as he recognised the far off figure cloaked in black.

'It's been a while,' And if the dramatic build up hadn't given it away, 'Itachi-sama.'

Twenty metres overhead were two black cloaked men looking completely at home in the dismal downpour. They slowed to a halt at the trail's edge looking down at the Sound pair and their captive, the taller of the pair gave a predatory grin and said in a deeply sarcastic voice. 'Why its Kabuto-san! It's been a while since the last time we saw one another, hasn't it? Yes, I'm well, thank you for enquiring after my health and how are you this fine evening?'

Kabuto couldn't help smiling a little at the shark man's retort. 'Good evening Kisame-sama.'

'Kabuto-san . . . is this a social visit or something else.' Kabuto looked up to where the Uchiha was looking suitable bored and annoyingly enough warm, even in the almighty storm they were facing he still managed to look impeccable. Although he had addressed his sentence like a question, chances were Itachi already knew what he was there for and he was just playing around.

Kimimaro walked forwards with an ironically boneless grace, his red rimmed green eyes staring up at the Akatsuki members as he sneered in a stage whisper with his deadpan voice. 'Who are these people Kabuto-san?' He thrust a sack of assorted medical herbs at the medic nin's feet as he rudely stared at the odd looking pair, a blue skinned man and a startlingly beautiful man.

Itachi stared at Kabuto in his usual emotionless way, completely avoiding looking at Kimimaro although he could see him perfectly well in his peripheral vision. Kisame was also not quite looking at the white haired man as he continued to chat with Kabuto. The pair could see the man getting irritated as he was completely left out of the conversation, like child in the presence of adults. Secretly, they both felt smug, in a childish way.

For some reason the swaggeringly, effeminate manner of the man was greatly pissing the sharkman off. There was the slight nagging, slight condescending, monotonous deadpan sneer of a voice, the man sounded and acted like an oversized adolescent teen, if they had deep baritone voices. Kisame was normally a mild mannered missing nin, but even he had to resist the urge to run over and start serving a shaved Kimimaro up on a platter. As discretely as a six foot blue skinned man could, he began to sign hand signals at his partner, _"Who's the girl?"_

Itachi quickly answered back in a similar fashion. _"Hyuuga Hinata, heir to the Hyuuga clan from that place . . . the other one I don't know.' _Kisame couldn't help grinning at that last clause, Itachi was antisocial, that was true but even he had been raised with a sense of humour. The Uchiha's humour was unsurprisingly, an incredibly quick, dry and intensely scathing wit. You didn't want to be on the receiving end of it, as Itachi had gained an almost godly ability to diss people, that and he had a photographic memory for, amongst other things, yo mama jokes.

Kisame didn't even have to look over to see that Itachi was looking even more pissed than usual, it wasn't noticeable to anyone else but it was to him, that slight deepening of his already broody glare and then there was the subtle shift in his chakra. Itachi hated talking about Konoha to the extent that he didn't even use the word when talking about the village.

'So why are you here Kabuto-san.' Itachi asked again, in the polite voice he always used to talk to enemy shinobi.

Kabuto pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, with a hint of embarrassment, 'Orochimaru-sama wishes for you to join the Hidden Sound.' Kabuto looked sideways at the sudden interest in Kimimaro's normally impassive features, 'He offers you power, jutsus, world domination but . . .'

' . . . there's always a catch isn't there Kabuto-san.' Itachi said with a mock sigh.

Kabuto rolled his eyes before nodding in agreement. This was a common routine between the three missing nin, it had to be performed at least once per month and this was the second time that week, which mostly had to do with the fact that Orochimaru was getting really, really resistant to his medication, so much so that the dosage he took now would've knocked out the entire maternity ward in Konoha for the length of multiple pregnancies.

In all seriousness however, Itachi was a little pissed on the inside that such a weak ninja, and a girly one at that, could find him so easily. Kabuto was a grating prescence if tolerated but he always brought the latest leather bound issue of the Bingo book, a new set of nicely balanced kunai and home cooked food along, _'Ninja's need comfort food too,' _His inner voice told him, which he had to whole heartedly agree with, that was one of the reasons the Akatsuki members visited the Hidden Sound so often.

Itachi briefly wondered whether his little brother was aware that the Hidden Sound regularly met up with the Akatsuki members, although they had a tendency to have breakfast at those meetings so that was highly unlikely. Sasuke hated waking up in the mornings when he was a kid and since his hair hadn't changed once, it was unlikely that this habit had changed as well.

'He wants your body.' Kabuto said, breaking Itachi out of his musings.

'Let me think about that . . . no.'

'. . .'

'. . .'

'. . .!'

There was a significant pause from everyone in the immediate vicinity.

' _. . .' _Itachi always said that, so it wasn't a change from the usual.

'_That sounds creepy every time he says it.' _Kisame couldn't help looking a little disgusted every time Kabuto said that Orochimaru wanted Itachi for his body. To be completely truthful, he vomited a little inside his mouth at the thought. Although Orochimaru didn't know this, the shark man was the first to insist that Orochimaru leave, he was perfectly fine killing random people but showering in the communal Akatsuki showers with someone who openly admired cough lusted cough for another man's body? There was only so much someone could take.

'_I wonder what's for dinner back home?' _Kabuto was feeling a little sick too but that was more likely from the still drenching downpour that was occurring, for god's sake the man was a medic nin, there wasn't a heck of a lot he felt sick at. Kabuto was the kind of man who craved a good dollop of oozing lasagne after a graphic STD slideshow.

'_OMOS!!!' _The shocked pause was from Kimimaro, the white haired man was coming to grips with the theoretical idea that Orochimaru-sama might like someone else more than him. The though was mind boggling, neigh, surely blasphemy! _'It can't be true!' _He keened inside his mind, but the expressionless mask of the dark haired man said nothing at all. _'Why would he like him when he has me? His hair is so girlishly shiny, his body is like a kid's and he's prettier than Tayuya.' _ Kimimaro's eye was now bulging dangerously as well as a tick having developed on his left temple, he was now eyeing Itachi off jealously, trying hard to avoid Itachi's perfect hair, body and face.

He took a deep breath, completely ignoring the sidelong glances from Kabuto who was slowly edging away, Hinata's unconscious body over one shoulder and the sack of plants in the other. He looked down at the bracelet he had made from himself out long black hair, purple and white beads and read the short message he had spelled out for himself, "W.W.O.S.D?" He pondered and schooled himself into a sickeningly charming expression, whilst smiling at the bishie above him.

Itachi reeled slightly at the creepy smile which eerily reminded him of a certain banned Akatsuki member, he composed himself once again, (actually to Kabuto and Kisame, Itachi's hand had just twitched inside its sleeve, not that that was noticeable) and finally made up his mind. 'No.'

Kimimaro's eyes wide Cheshire smile faded quickly to be replaced by a look of utter disgust and anger. At the signs of Hinata stirring Kabuto had taken out another bottle of sleeping potion and had begun to dose her when he noticed the unusual spike in chakra next to him. _'And it begins.' _In a movement characteristic to the inhabitants of the Hidden Sound, Kabuto pulled out a pair of ear plugs and shoved them inside his ears with ease, before returning to his work.

'How can you say that with such contemptuous ease?' The man began it a low whisper that carried past the pounding of the torrential downpour. His voice quickly began to rise in volume. 'You should feel immense joy that you've even been considered by Orochimaru-sama! To think that he would chose such despicable trash as you is laughable! He is perfection itself, as God's avatar, he is perfect with otherworldly beauty, immense strength and a purity of though that does you would not understand in its divine clarity!' Kimimaro's voice had risen to a loud roar now and still Itachi had not budged an inch. 'But that is not in my thoughts to question him as he is my world and I am but his vessel, as he is God's!'

Itachi stood still with a look of politeness of his face, like the look on people's faces when they decide humour a child's ranting thoughts on how their friends believe that the moon is made from cheese. _'What's the secret to making really good wine? Is it the grapes or the casket or what?' _That was actually what he was thinking at the moment, as strange as it was. Itachi was a super genius, several times smarter than an idiot savant, so it was best not to wonder how he had come to that conclusion, as he was so much smarter than everyone else it was like comparing a human with a chicken.

Itachi's eyes had actually glazed over slightly during his thought process but he quickly snapped out of his thoughts to look down at Kimimaro. At the unspoken silence and after glancing around for a few seconds, Itachi guessed that the rant was over so he and Kisame began to walk away.

Meanwhile Kimimaro's mouth had fallen open and in a blur of movement he scaled the cliff face with one bound, his mouth closed before reopening in an angry snarl, 'Answer me!' Kimimaro landed with a soft squelch beside the pair and his hand shot out reaching for Itachi's shoulder, simultaneously in the split second before he made contact Kabuto and Kisame had the exact same thought. _'Oh snap.'_

Faster than a striking snake Itachi's hand had grabbed Kimimaro's slender wrist through the thick fabric of his yukata and began to delicately grind his wrist bones together. If this had been any other setting, Kabuto and Kisame would have crowded around by now chanting "Fight! Fight!" but they were ninjas so they stood around like it was a normal event for one pretty boy to start whaling on another pretty boy, strangely this happened more frequently than one might imagine.

'I don't think you should be so rash.' His eyes began to look into Kimimaro's ensnaring him as easily as a fox mesmerising a hen. Itachi's eyebrow rose slightly as the skin on the hand he was holding began to shift and warp, he could see pale blue veins twisting and jumping as the pale hard bone began to flower another twisted growth. A wordless grunt from the paler man made Itachi glance up out the corner of his eye and he immediately noticed that similar protrusions had begun to slowly hackle under the white kimono.

Despite Itachi's calm look, he had the strangest urge to see how the man reacted underneath the control of his Tsukiyomi. _'It'd be like beating a masochist . . .' _Itachi thought, there was something about the man in front of him, staring like a zombie that suggested he liked being miserable in a creepy way. Green eyes glazed over even more and he stepped away, before blinking and looking vaguely peppy.

'Thanks for putting that genjutsu on him Itachi-san.' Kabuto said with a smile on his face, despite being Kimimaro's presence.

'Doesn't that man get on your nerves?' Kisame said with a sigh in his harsh voice.

Kabuto rolled his eyes. 'You have no idea.' He turned around to see what had happened to the man they were talking about to see a deeply chilling sight, Itachi was slowly pushing Kimimaro back and forth off the edge of the cliff, catching him just in time before he plummeted to a pointy stone filled death. If it wasn't such a creepy sight, Kabuto would have slapped Itachi's hand away like he did with Orochimaru when he was experimenting with poprocks and coke.

'He should've been killed off in the Kaguya genocide.' Kabuto said after a moment's hesitation.

'Oh so he was one of those albino, puffy haired clowns that attacked the Hidden Mist?' Kisame said with interest. 'We'd have gotten rid of a lot more of those crappy missing nins walking around today if the same thing happened in every village as it used to in the Hidden Mist.' Kisame said with almost fondness in his voice.

'He's only alive cause Orochimaru thought he would be the perfect blood limit.'

'. . . is that so.' Itachi said holding onto Kimimaro in such a way that his feet hung off the cliff, supported only by his considerable strength. Emotionless eyes held a stare off, Itachi continued to drop him before catching him just in time

'Well Orochimaru always thought the Uchiha blood limit was the ultimate one however he decided to cut his losses when you refused to join him and try for Sasuke-sama.' Kabuto said casually.

'Oh.'

'_Shit.' _ That was the thought going through Kabuto's mind when he realised what he had said in front of the highly dangerous pair. He wasn't sure what would happen if he mentioned it to Itachi that his brother was being targeted by the same man who had paediatric-homoerotic tendencies to him several years ago. Considering his contrary nature he might just decide to hand Sasuke over or even kill the Legendary Sannin over the seemingly small detail, what with the ambiguous nature of Itachi's exact estranged relationship with his brother after all.

'It's things like that that make me glad I killed my family.' Itachi said, before adding. 'My little brother has a habit of rushing into things half cocked, that's how he first burned himself on that oven door after all.' After many years revealing a hint of the mysterious of the strange circumstances that had surrounded the Uchiha genocide that he had instituted. It was many hours later when replaying the conversation in their minds that they had to think about Itachi's unique idiosyncrasies that they sat down and vowed never to do anything even remotely approaching weakness within the missing nin's presence.

'Your brother? Isn't that the boy who attacked us when we were going after the jinchuuriki . . . he'd be about.' Kisame thought about it and gestured vaguely with his hand. 'Yea high?' Kisame's face scrunched up as he tried to think of clearer characteristic of the younger Uchiha, his scowling face brightened and he began to mime backwards whooshing movements to his the dark side of his cranium. 'Pointy hair like a duck's backside? Girly face? Uses your name in place of a pronoun?'

'That's the one.'

'Thought so.' The taller Akatsuki man said with satisfaction.

A significant pause flopped awkwardly around the clearing before Itachi began to speak, as he let Kimimaro dive off the cliff face once more.

'We have things to do . . .'

Easily grabbing at the mere hint of a viable subject change that the conversation had dangerously twisted to, Kabuto leapt on it faster than Jiraiya's appearance at the Konoha Hot Spring. 'I'd better be going too, people to see.'

'Weapons to buy.'

'Bodies to dissect.'

'Jutsus to collect.'

'Drugs to make.'

'Chicks to call.' Kisame said absentmindedly

At this odd change of pace both Kabuto **and **Itachi looked over Kisame who was looking at a scrawled number on his wrist, before glancing at one another and then averting their gaze once more, wisely opting not to think of the girl who give Kisame her number.

All missing nin within the area turned to leave, Kabuto took a step before a niggling thought that had been echoing through his mind asserted itself. 'How secure is the genjutsu on Kimimaro, Itachi-san?'

' ' The dark silence that slowly emerged from Itachi as he turned to stare at Kabuto was enough to send shivers down the older man's neck. After a few seconds Itachi turned to his partner and they walked off.

Kabuto watched them solemnly before a sadistic smile spread across his face as he glanced at Kimimaro. He grinned sinisterly, he always wanted to do this but all the shinobis he despised had been vaguely good at genjutsu or had companions who were. Kabuto started to chant.

'River dance, river dance, river dance, river dance.'

Kimimaro paused then slowly started to river dance. Left foot, hop, step, right foot, hop, step and clap. Kabuto frowned, most people looked like idiots but Kimimaro had an ironically boneless grace that made the river dance look elegant also there was the fact that he was doing it with a look of solemn concentration on his face.

Kabuto turned and gave a sadistic smile, 'Kimimaro-san could you get the lotuses that are growing next to that huge waterfall?' Kimimaro obediently did so, not even getting that wet or even close to being injured. Kabuto sighed it would be a lot harder to get rid of his annoying companion. 'Just go get the herbs that we need.'

Kimimaro grunted and turned to walk away oblivious of the rain.

**What the jizz?**

A/N- I think Kimimaro is deeply religious . . . he seems that kind of person who isolates themselves in one thing, immerses themselves practically and would kill to hear anything different, like Trekkies. I believe he uses the word "Orochimaru" the way my sister and I used "Christopher Reeves" name when we watched Village of the Damned, I practically replaced all pronouns and the word "the" with Christopher Reeves. If you watch it you'll understand what I'm going on about, Christopher Reeves rocks.

It's easy to predict that Kimimaro also has more bones in his hands, what with more than 206, he's got to have more in his hands . . . I thought it would also be interesting to describe the process since tendons and muscles are attached around bones and stuff . . . they have to go somewhere don't they? Oh, and explaining how Itachi was easily able to bend, for lack of a better word, Kimimaro's bones which are denser than steel . . . well strength normally equates to heavier density in chemistry ie. Steel weights about three times as aluminium, titanium weights least but costs most, gold is very heavy but because of its electro negativity potential it tends to be very soft and cause other things to have accelerated corrosion etc, etc.

So its pretty easy to assume that Kimimaro would weight a freaking ton what with all the bones in his body being denser than steel . . . and he's not exactly crushing rocks when he steps on them . . . so I'm assuming that his bones are the same weight as normal bones until he actually wants them to be a defense/offense mechanism.


	7. Chapter 7

**BMR13- **What will hopefully be the newly released 7th chapter! I'll be counting the days, I started on the 6th of November P.

A new rumour has emerged regarding Naruto fillers, apparently they will end in March of this year. Fingers crossed, but this is what they said about episode 203, and the twenty-one weeks of fillers.

In other news, I got engaged in Ragnarok Online, an online RPG. I'm freaking out because my fiancée seems really enthusiastic about marrying me . . . he got almost all the cash we needed// 3.2 million, in basically two days . . . oh and my sister and I have restarted Gauntlet Legends again, very old, very monster stompy game, screw that the first level of the third stage and its massive fields.

Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto, if I did, there would probably be more chicks in the Akatsuki and Kisame would be hot . . . or not. There is a reason why I scraped a pass in art after all . . . I like to make fun of the Hidden Mist and Kisame for some reason , JAJapster will probably get the reference . . . I hope.

**I got engaged in RO! I'm getting cold feet . . .**

' . . . ' Kisame looked out of the corner of his eye, his partner's stealth was incredible even casually walking like they were now. There were barely any footsteps present in the soft mud they were treading through; his presence was like a chunk of missing sound in the air as they glided across the thick mud.

That wasn't really the reason why Kisame had been glancing at Itachi though, he was more concerned with the fact that thus far, they had trudged through four countries to get here (Itachi liked to multi-task with missions), a sandstorm, a horde of fangirls and a really bad case of Sandaime's Revenge and yet he **still **had no idea what was going on. _'Where are we going?' _Kisame wondered once again as he, oh so casually, glanced around the forest, which had a striking resemblance to water logged broccoli in the forceful deluge.

'. . . ' The shark man looked over once more. He wanted to ask, if just to break the silence, but that would make him look stupid and no one wanted to look dumb in front of Itachi. The Uchiha tended to count stupid people along the same lines as civilians, sure they were there but they weren't really any use.

' . . . ever wondered why the rain here is so intense?' Itachi said with a slight degree of reluctance, his voice was quieter than usual and Kisame suspected it was because even the Uchiha figured that now was the time to do the responsible thing and inform him of their mission.

'. . .' Kisame had to think about that one, back when he was becoming a genin they didn't have those applied physics or geology science classes. Pre-genin just tended to be thrown out with a knife and a cotton shirt to fend for themselves and the best ones tended to come back. In all truth, that wasn't any different from what the Hidden Mist did now, but that was a different issue. 'I though this was normal.'

' . . . ' The taller man looked away to the contemptuous glance that his partner stared at him as if wondering how you couldn't understand, ' . . . anyway, the inundation of rain present within this province, is several times higher then would be expected. In any average storm, the Fire Country can expect about twenty to thirty-five millimetres.' Itachi pointed at an ancient oak tree which was immersed in water past its prominent root system. 'Even an idiot can tell that's way past fifty millimetres.'

Kisame pondered this before nodding in the way that people do when they have no clue of what was going on. 'Indeed.'

'So the rain is much more than would be expected. Every year, this area is subject to hurricane force storms and flash flooding as predictable as the sun rising.' Itachi said with self satisfaction. 'The closest human populated village nearby is Tsukihime go. It is one of the oldest outposts in the Fire Country and has just recently celebrated its two hundredth anniversary. . . . however,' he paused melodramatically, 'The sheer amount of rain when taking into account its geological positioning within these mountains as well as the typical drainage that is constructed in areas of heavy rainfall . . . is not enough for the city to be liveable . . . or even exist.'

' . . .?'

'From the amount of precipitation it receives in one storm, it should be enough to destroy it and for it to be potential landlocked ocean. All other villages within the area have been destroyed to a man and it had always been blamed on their architecture or their unfortunate location. Tsukihime go is no different and yet somehow the village still manages to survive.'

'Hmmm I thought the weather was kinda weird for Fire Country.' Unfortunately for Kisame, he was lacking a distinct ability to differentiate different kinds of weather patterns having lived in the Hidden Mist the entirety of his life. The torrential downpour of rain was thus that their summers had heatwaves when the rain let up and it became 25 degrees centigrade. It was however, cold enough that even Kisame was snuggled deep into his coat, considering that the shark man who grew up in the eternal rain of the Hidden Mist, his partner would be almost frozen when compared to sunny Konoha. Itachi was probably feeling miserable but then again Itachi always acted like that.

Itachi frowned. 'That would not be an adequate answer for the phenomenon that occurs here biannually. In the mountains of Fire country, it is common for there to be the occasional storm. Tsukihime go on the other hand, is too far inland for any coastal storms but unlike other places that are on the border of extreme climates, its too far for there to be such a severe clash of cold and hot winds. According to our favourite quadragenarian, Sasori-san, the winds just appear out of nowhere and the storms all generate in one area.'

Kisame nodded sagely before pulling out their waterproofed map. 'This would be it right?'

'Indeed.' He murmured. 'That,' he stabbed the map with end of his index finder, 'is why we have been sent here.'

They moved quickly and silently, efficiently like the professionals they were. Whilst the rain continued, if anything, brutally intensifying with every passing second, the pair still continued on, stoically determined to complete their mission.

A dark temple loomed in front of them after what seemed like hours of trekking through the rain. It had been a pristine white temple once, a monument to a long forgotten deity, which now lay in ruins. The marble entrance had gradually crumbed with age and a carved sexless statue had leant over, almost protectively in front of the yawning darkness within, one marble white arm outstretched over their heads as a protective shelter.

Without even a hint of hesitation, they wordlessly stepped inside and paused, not only to have their eyes adapt to the gloom but to savour the sensation of no longer having water pelted at them not unlike the vengeance of an angry lover on a balcony. However despite the instinctual feeling that they would be best suited to heading for shelter, the piercing coldness of the bowels of dark earth that the temple was burrowed into was having some chilling effects.

' . . . . ' Kisame turned his head to left and to the right, and back once again. He stopped, and took off his hat, giving it a brisk shake whilst his partner undid his hair in a vainglorious flick, spraying water over the pair of them. He scowled before trying to get a better glimpse of what was inside the temple.

It was very quiet, considering the din of the storm outside, inside not even their steps had echoed and now the only sounds were the steady beat of rain punctuated by the occasional basso rumbling of thunder answered by a staccato thunderclap. The light that filtered through encompassing arms glinted over crazed metal, tarnished dull silver in their abandonment, ivy carvings were faded and taken over by the real thing, their long woody stems clamouring over every viable surface and the sweet smell of decayed flowers floated through the air.

-snap-

'???' Kisame turned in the darkness to look in the general direction of his partner. Instinctively he took a step back as the odd sensation of being gently pulled in emitted from his cloak.

-crackle-

'!' The taller man hastily covered his eyes as whatever Itachi had been holding was set alit with an almost colourless blue-white flame. He gingerly lowered his hands, scrubbing away white floating objects in a vain attempt to dispel them, little did he know this was impossible since they the images were floating on the back of his eyes.

' . . . let's go.'

'Itachi-san I have a question. What exactly does this temple have to do with the subnormal weather activity within this region?' Kisame too, was capable of using long words when he wanted to feel smart.

' . . . ' Itachi looked out of the corner of his eyes, a look of slight puzzlement on his face. 'Did the Leader not tell you?' At Kisame's wordless glare, Itachi did a very odd gesture and tilted his head, his tone slightly quizzical. 'And my informative colloquium did nothing to enlighten you on our situation?'

'It was a great help.' Kisame drawled.

'Then why did you ask?' Itachi turned back around whilst Kisame rolled his eyes. Genius he was, but the man he was partnered with had tendency to incredibly dense sometimes.

They walked to the end of the room where three identical doorways with winged beings embracing either side, Itachi began to walk down to walk down the right hand path and Kisame stopped him. 'Why this one?'

'The statue outside had its right arm outstretched, ergo we go down this one.' Itachi spoke with infinite patience.

'How did you know it was this one? And not the left path?' Kisame said in annoyance.

' . . . because.'

'Why?'

Itachi sighed, resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He rolled his eyes before speaking slowly as if Kisame was a slow child instead of an S-rank shinobi. 'The right hand was outstretched because it was the 'good' hand. Dextral and sinistral were concepts frequently used throughout temples in previous times when people were more superstitious. Dextral things were considered good whilst sinistral things were considered bad, many evil gods were left handed thereby providing more to this belief.'

'Is that the only reason?' Kisame replied.

' . . . no.' Itachi pointed a long finger into the air. 'Stupidity dictates that we hide things important to us in places we think no one will guess, that are out of sight or impractical. This passage is the longest judging from the lack of sound reverberation, it also has no escape passage from the lack of air which is present in the other two chambers. In addition to that, the marble here,' he helpfully knocked on the wall, which resounded with a slightly dull clunk. 'Is lighter in shade and has a finer grain, a more typical Fire Country marble compared to the denser Wind Country stuff everywhere else suggesting it was added sometime after the original construction of the temple.'

Kisame wordlessly turned and they began to walk down the passage.

' . . . this is going to be a long walk isn't it?'

'Yup.'

"**Owned like a deaf bitch"**

Naruto snuggled down in wordless joy as he wrapped the heavy eiderdown doona around his body. The brightly lit room he was in smelled like heaven or something close to it, there was the manly smell of wood burning as well as an enticing smell wafting out of the kitchen. He settled back to have a better look at two people he hadn't seen in years.

Tenten was one of Konoha's elite weapon users and the fact that she was an attractive young woman was an even more startling fact when people were introduced to her. She had an alarming tendency at times to pull out much more shiny things than would be expected to be on a person's body or even in a wannabe samurai's armoury for that fact. She was Neji's age and they had been on the same team together until everyone from the famous Rookie Nine had drifted apart.

The brown haired girl had her hair tied back into two buns on either side of her head and she was clothed in a simple blue Chinese style shirt and the rest of the standard Chuunin clothing consisting of a Chuunin jacket and pants. She more than her fare share of hip holsters which was explainable considering her profession, which was evident from the shiny Hidden Leaf forehead protector around her neck.

Seated next to her was the beautiful Yuuhi Kurenai. She was a Jounin ranked kuniochi who specialised in genjutsu and she possessed long, glossy brown hair and mesmerising red eyes which interesting red flecks, shown up by the slight touches of make up she wore. Her dress was simple and different from the bandage like garb she had worn several years ago the last time Naruto has seen her. This time she was dressed in regulation Jounin gear making him a little nervous; adding to his discomfit was the fact that she was Hinata's teacher.

Neji seemed to sense this thought in Naruto's mind and the older teen had eerily turned to give the blonde, a death stare to end all death stares. Tenten and Kurenai seemed puzzled by usual tension in air, something that Neji hadn't done since he was a jerk before the Chuunin exams.

Naruto cringed under the accusing glare and concentrated on the chicken sandwich in front of him before drinking a steaming mug of tea. Thankfully for him, Tifa, the proprietor of the inn arrived laden down with more food for the bottomless pit that was affectionately known as Naruto.

Tifa had once been a particularly beautiful woman and had aged gracefully, unlike Tsunade, to become a particularly handsome lady with long snowy white hair. The formidable looking woman had opened the door with a terrifying look on her face before smiling benevolently up at them.

The surprisingly nice grandmother had taken an immense liking to the young men who had shown up on her doorstep after closing time, soaked to the bone, exhausted from running the length of the Fire country and starving to boot. She had of course taken a liking to Neji, many women did, as he was incredibly tall, handsome, wealthy, polite and generally the epitome of a nice boy.

But she had taken a particular shine to Naruto who when compared to Neji was a midget, not particularly good looking to anyone besides Hinata, was poorer than dirt, had the manners of a six year old child and was the shining ideal of a rebellious ninja. There was one good reason for this, in addition to all of this, he had a striking resemblance to a long gone friend of hers' by the name of Cloud.

Naruto had a particular odd albeit endearing quality, he had the strange ability to familiarise himself with people over the age of fifty merely by looking like some estranged relative they had once known, no matter how faint the resemblance. Examples of this were with Tsunade who identified him with her younger brother, Jiraiya who associated him with the Fourth Hokage and randoms he had encountered in his numerous missions.

He was also a bottomless pit and connoisseur of any food that strayed across his path. A welcome trait by any woman's reckoning.

Naruto started as another plate of food was placed in front of him, he looked up with innocent "me?" eyes to the grandmother, who motioned him to begin eating. He took a small forkful and bit into it. A few seconds passed before he lifted his head, his eyes were swimming in tears as he held the platter to the sky, where it promptly grew wings and a heavenly glow. 'I've . . . never had anything so . . . wonderful in my entire life. Thank you Ba-chan . . . I can now die a happy man.' The blonde blew his nose on a tissue before returning to the food in front of him.

At these glowing compliments, the old woman hugged him to her ample bosom before returning the kitchen to feed her favourite guest some more. Neji looked down at his own rather pitiful plate of food, one lonely sandwich, when compared to Naruto's, which looked like what Chouji ate for lunch when he was hungry.

'Neji,' he turned to face his former team mate, 'have you heard from Gai-sensei and Lee lately?'

'Not since their mission in the Earth Country began,' he said with a frown on his face, 'I heard rumours that they've taken longer than usual to complete it, mostly from the lack of leads but I got a letter sent by summon that they'll be back before the end of the month.' He folded his arms before settling back down. 'I heard that Kiba's group will be back from their mission as well.'

'Missions?' They both turned to Naruto who was holding out his food politely, not really expecting them to grab any, which to his immense surprise they did. 'Come to think of it, not many people were in the village huh? I didn't see anyone besides,' he paused, 'besides Neji before we left.'

'Un.' Tenten nodded. 'Tsunade-sama sent almost three quarters of the shinobi available out, besides the minimum required for the village that is. I've been on border duty for the last few months but I've gotten other missions on top of this to finish too.' She scratched her arm as she looked at Naruto.

'Although its kinda weird that she sent you out so early, considering you've been away from the village for so long, she would've let you recuperate before sending you off once again.'

Neji and Naruto tensed before she stuck her tongue out in a teasing gesture. 'Guess she just works everyone to the bone.'

-BOOM- Kurenai looked around, 'The rain is really coming down isn't it? Dinner will be ready in a few moments so get changed okay?'

They all nodded before Tenten shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. She moved over to the glass window which opened up to a dark watery world, the deep cold chilling the panel to the touch. 'I feel sorry for however is out there right now.'

**I got engaged in RO! I'm getting cold feet . . .**

'Ha-choo!' Sasuke sneezed before giving the sky a dirty look, to say this was mere rain was an understatement, it was more along the lines of a Biblical flooding. On one or two occasions he had sworn he had seen some of the locals getting around on small boats but from the downpour there was little to no visibility so that was highly unlikely.

'_What a dump.' _He though with an irritated look upon his face, staring at the clogged drains nearby. His sandals were thoroughly soaked, socks squelching with every step since it was highly conspicuous and draining to walk on water the entire way. The drain gave an ominous burp and several hundred litres of water backwashed onto the street with a flood of leaves, a dead rat and other suspicious muck.

After an elaborate cleaning of the drains involving one snake, four lengths of wire and a set of pulleys, Sasuke congratulated himself on a job well done and headed to the bar to get some information. He knocked briskly on the door and waited for a response.

A hatch on the door slide open with a rusty creak, a blood shot pair of eyes stared at him. 'Yeah.'

'Are you open?'

'Yeah.'

'Are you going to open the door?'

'Yeah.'

Sasuke twitched. _'Monosyllabic bastard.'_

After a few moments and a clanking of numerous locks and keys being opened, the door slide open a crack to allow Sasuke in and a rush of warm air and the smell of stale beer out. He wrinkled his nose in distaste before stepping inside, a truly depressing sight greeted him, there were less then twenty patrons of the bar within and most of them were deep in their cups already.

The baleful glare of drunk country hicks settled on the pretty city boy almost as one, images of lynchings in their head as they though of the semi-divine retribution that would rend the teen asunder at even the slightest hint of localising with their girls. Luckily for both parties, Sasuke wasn't interested. The girls there weren't pretty anyway.

The dark haired ANBU casually strode over to the bar, when he sat himself down before ordering a plate of food. 'I have a few questions.' He began, snapping his chopsticks apart with relish. The bartender grunted as he lifted several beer steins out of the sink. 'Has anyone suspicious been through in the last few days?'

' . . . what's it to you kid?' The man who opened the door said, he hawked a yellow chunk of phlegm into his coaster.

Sasuke nonchalantly slide out the ANBU seal that pretty much allowed him to do anything. It was nothing too flash, just a simple black stone with the stylised leaf design upon it, with the right amount of base ingredients a person could easily make a counterfeit of it but then again it was a federal offense to do so, one that the ANBU enjoyed enforcing.

The bartender snorted. 'You even legal yet kid?' There was a barely noticeable twitch from the seated officer before the bartender exploded into a fit of laughter. 'What do ya wanna know?

'Just the answer to my question.' Sasuke said with satisfaction.

Another grunt emerged and there was a long moments silence as the bartender looked after the other patrons. He moved back to the counter and once more began to clean the many glasses behind the bar.

'He only answers to paying customers kid.' One of the drinkers muttered in a cloud of alcoholic fumes. Muffled sniggers snuck out as the drunks smirked at the young man.

Sasuke grudgingly pulled out his wallet and nursed the thoughts of whether or not it would be okay to use genjutsu. It was technically immoral but if it got the job done, which would still render it useless, as the current Hokage set great stock by public relations.

The barman started to reminisce about a stream of random strangers, none of which were particularly suspicious by any means, although he did recognise the odd Bingo book ninja here and there. Several moments later, pausing as if to think, the barman slide him a drink from the other side of the room.

'There were two guys here this afternoon. One tall guy, really massive, and the other guy was about, your shoulder I think.'

He pretended not to be interested in this information; this was a lot better than the crap that had been emerging earlier.

'Dressed in weird capes weren't they boss?'

'Yup, sure was.' Sasuke looked up to meet the barman's eyes, his eyes taking on an almost reddish gleam.

'Tell me more.'

**I got engaged in RO! I'm getting cold feet . . .**

Meanwhile back in the temple . . .

'Three thousand, four hundred and fifty two.' The soft scrap, scrap of feet on stairs echoed through the darkness along with the slightly hampered breathing Kisame was experiencing.

'Is that how long we've been walking?'

'That is the number of steps we've taken.'

'Oh.' Kisame thought silently for a brief moment. ' . . . '

'Yes, it will be a long way Kisame.'

**I got engaged in RO! I'm getting cold feet . . .**

Back at the inn, things were getting awkward as the pair of kuniochi's questions were beginning to hit the mark.

'So Naruto-kun, how are my students? I haven't heard from them in quite a long time.' Kurenai said with a smile on her face.

'Um. I didn't get to see Shino or Kiba when I got back.' He began before Tenten interrupted in her brisk manner.

'You saw Hinata-chan then? How is she these days? I got a letter a few days back saying that she was swamped in paperwork as well as preparation for some massive family thing.' At the sharp glance from Neji, she looked extremely interested in her food.

'Hyuuga matters? Is it something the rest that us are going to be allowed into?' Naruto said in a teasing manner, he stopped at the pure iciness of Neji's glare turned onto him. He stopped, looking between the two team mates, as Neji stare bore into him and Tenten leapt to her feet to aid the bustling grandmother, who like all old women was taking immense interest in this gossip.

'You mean you didn't know?' Kurenai said with a look of surprise on her face. 'It was the gossip of the day last time I heard, I'm surprised that they took so long to even contemplate it. Apparently the negotiations were to start today.'

'Kurenai-sensei, Tenten.' Neji said in a sharp voice that brooked no opposition. In the wake of silence left by the sharp command, Naruto looked around in confusion trying to work out what was going on.

'So what happened in the Hyuuga house?' The blonde asked in sheer bafflement.

'Hinata-chan is becoming engaged to Sasuke-san.' Tenten whispered.

It looked like a small electric shock raced around Naruto's body as he bolted upright in surprise. He sank back down, his eyes slightly downcast. 'Oh how nice.' He stood up and looked around. 'I'm just going to the bathroom.'

'Are you feeling well Naruto-kun? You a little pale.' Tifa asked, her bright eyes softened in concern, her hands still engaged in stirring the soup in front of her.

'Bad sushi that I brought from the wharf, I think.' Naruto smiled a little weakly, his face turning an almost zombie like grey. 'That vender, whats his name . . .'

Kurenai gasped, her hands lifted to her face. 'Not Stab-Me-Eye-With-A-Kunai Dibuura! That man is a menace!'

The weapon mistress also looked scared. 'I thought he was just an urban legend like the mutant toads in the Konoha sewers or the guys who steal your chakra and leave you for dead!'

'You've heard of him.' Naruto gasped out as spasm of pain rippled through him. 'The toads are real though, seen 'em before, just really big toads.'

'Dibuura was dishonourably discharged from the Konoha corps years back, when his cooking was found to be a more effective at disabling the enemy then by using sarin gas.' Her eyes were downcast for a few seconds.

'Unfortunately we couldn't convince him to work as a double agent, so he just left, every now and then he gets his revenge by selling some suc-' Naruto grimaced in pain and Kurenai quickly changed her words. 'Unfortunate shinobi his blue plate special.'

'What's that?'

'A dish guaranteed to make the strongest ninja bedridden anywhere from three days to a month, with severe cramping, sweats, loss of appetite, double vision and chronic diarrhoea.'

'I don't feel too good.' Naruto clutched at his stomach making everyone in the room take a step backwards.

'There's a bathroom in every room dear, just be careful because porcelain's a little temperamental, tug the chain once or twice should do it.'

'Sure, sure.' The blonde grunted as he lurched towards the staircase, his stance bespeaking the thoughts of a person who was just too pissed to care any more but just had to keep going. Neji watched him leave before standing up as well.

'I'm going to unpack my bag.' Without another word he followed the blonde upstairs. Kurenai and Tenten shared knowing glances before they began to talk quickly in hushed tones about the mysterious circumstances regarding the event that has just occurred.

As soon as he reached to top of the staircase, Naruto had to struggle the few feet out of their curious sight; his face touched the wall, as he stared at the flying duck wallpaper wondering where he had gone wrong.

'Why didn't you tell me?' His voice was curiously devoid of all emotion, as if he had no say in the matter, nothing more than an unfeeling stranger.

'It had nothing to do with the mission.'

'It had everything to do with this mission!' His voice was raised, cracking slightly from the depth of emotion present in it, Neji watched impassively as the blonde raked his fingers through his hair, and one hand in his pocket as a display of misery and confusion lit his face. 'Were you ever going to tell me?'

'Like I said, it had nothing to do with what we're doing.'

'Shit Neji.' Naruto looked away, his brow furrowed. 'We could've brought along Sasuke and then we'd have an easier time of it. This won't be easy even factoring in Sakura's medical abilities.'

'I don't need his help, it's nothing more than a simple location and extraction mission.' The Hyuuga said with a cold glare, moving past Naruto to the room just past him. The blonde reached out with one arm, blocking his way. Neji looked down at the arm that was blocking his path before looking over at Naruto.

'You would rather risk the safety of your cousin rather than injure your pride?' Naruto's voice had an odd ring to it, slightly sarcastic. 'You've changed.'

'That is really none of your concern besides,' Neji opened the door to the room, he was headed towards, 'we all have to, in ways you wouldn't even understand.' Naruto looked away, his head lifting as Neji added. 'I'm glad we had this talk, your acting has really improved.'

'Who said I was acting?' Naruto groaned as a sharp pain in his abdomen knocked him clean to the floor. Neji looked down at him with mild distaste, one hand was outstretched grasping onto the leg of his pants. 'H-help me, I'm not going to make it.' Another spasm ripped through his body. 'I-I need to use your bathroom. Please.' Cue googly eyes.

Neji stepped out of his reach. 'Incidentally, you're sleeping over there.' Neji pointed to a room several steps away, causing Naruto to groan in sheer agony. 'If you have enough strength to beg, drag yourself over there Naruto.'

'Please Neji, I'll do anything! ANYTHING!'

The Hyuuga paused as if contemplating the deal before maliciously shaking his head. 'I intend to sleep here tonight.' Before Naruto could think of react Neji had closed the door in his face.

'What the hell is that supposed to mean!?' Naruto pounded on the door, before he grit his teeth and eyed the yawning gap to the doorway that contained the sweet relief just out of his grasp. 'Come on Naruto, just two metres, and we're there.'

A basso groan emerged from deep within his body followed by curious gassy noises. He gritted his teeth and began to slowly inch his way over to the door. It was going to be a long night.

**I got engaged in RO! I'm getting cold feet . . .**

Does anyone else think its weird how Naruto looks like everyone's nephew/ son/ grandson/ friend's kid/ relative? Maybe its just me . . . does everyone just look the same in Konoha? Ie. Sai and Sasuke, Hyuuga clones, Gai and Lee . . . nah, must be my imagination . . .

The manga's taken some pretty interesting plot twists lately no? Asuma's dead, its not like he was much use anyway . . . oh shut up, you were all thinking it. Hidan amuses me greatly, his sailor speech has probably taken the rating up a notch even in Japan .

Anyway, expect another long interval between chapter updates, this year is my final year of school before I head off to university, wish me luck .


	8. Indiana Jones Style

BMR13- Heya, the 8th chapter .

Well . . . its just about time for out of exam block exams. Completely stuffed one of the questions for my chem., forgot to factor in the double moles of hexane, so I ended up with an answer twice as big as what it was supposed to be, got a B for my English oral . . . UMAT prep is screwing around with my mind.

I entered JAJapster's little OC contest amongst his readers, I submitted four detailed profiles in a very long email. I fangirlishly hope to win , he has yet to reply.

SHIIIIII+PUUUUUU+DEEEEENNNNNN! XD! The new ending and opening rock, Josh's Sheet Music already has Nagare Boshi's melody transcribed, found some very good sites as well, so email me if you want free anime sheet music. As well as an awesome French site that has all the Final Fantasy songs you could ever want, from all the games and even the specially released stuff like the Black Mages, I downloaded One Winged Angel: AC version and Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec from FF8, aka the parade march song in Dollet City.

Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto. I wish I did, I bet my vocal choice would be better than the ones chosen for the English dubs. My god, I was watching it –shudders-. Hurray for the new episodes! I love the new ending and opening, they're so much better than filler openings and endings its not funny.

**JAJAPSTER IS MAH BISHIE!!! –waves doll- **

'Any luck Uchiha-kun?' The Hyuuga Jounin said with a great deal of enthusiasm considering both the weather and her background.

'Nothing particularly interesting.' Sasuke said with a shrug, belaying the fact that he had received news about members of the top secret Akatsuki organization that had recently passed through. Since the time Itachi and his partner Kisame, had failed in their attempted abduction of Naruto, there had been very little sightings of the distinctively cloaked Akatsuki. Whilst their motives were still unclear, the Hokage had deemed it unnecessary for the vast majority of the Konoha shinobi to know about them.

However, all the ANBU as well as most of the Jounin instructors were aware of their existence and had been sworn to secrecy under terms of national security. In any case, Sasuke had ignored procedure and had not contacted the village for back up. This was because of his personal business to settle with the pair, something that the Jounin accompanying him wasn't about to interfere with.

'I heard that some men passed through here this afternoon heading for the Sound borders.'

'That's the same information I received earlier this afternoon.' She sighed looking up at the sky. 'We should head for some inn or something. Since the weather is so bad then its unlikely that the party we're after is likely to make much progress. Even if we continued in this dangerous weather, slippery trails and no clues about their progress would hinder us greatly.'

'We'll leave at first light, or whenever this storm breaks.' He said with satisfaction.

**KAWORU NAGISA IS MAH BISHIE!!! –waves doll-**

Naruto had to resist the urge to crawl downstairs on his hand and knees, years of bad food had built up his resistance to the rock crushing fury of the cramps within his body. Lesser men would be on the toilet, luckily a giant demon fox possessed Naruto, not that this did him much good.

Most of the time, the Kyuubi was a massive pain in the ass although rarely, Naruto admired and listened to the good advice offered by the fox within. His foxy self was currently advising him to go and eat a big patch of grass, this was not one of those times.

Even the Kyuubi's regenerative abilities could do nothing to this internal damage, considering his body was already urging him to solve it the easiest way possible. Purging the mess, and fast.

Two pairs of scheming eyes lit on his and he had a strange crawling feeling of walking into a room full of sound, which was suddenly gone. Tenten and Kurenai stared at him.

'Naruto, did something happen back home?' Tenten ventured, her tone sharp.

'Yes Naruto-kun, if anything happened, I think it would be better if we heard of it first.' Kurenai nodded. 'I can go ahead and send a fast missive to the Hokage if you need any help.'

'Its nothing really.' He said, spreading his hands in submission, a lopsided grin on his face. Neither woman was convinced in the least by this pathetic bald faced lie.

'You seemed unusually sensitive about Hinata-chan and Sasuke-kun's upcoming betrothal.' Tenten said suspiciously.

'Aren't I always concerned about Hinata's feelings?' Naruto said in serious deadpan voice.

Kurenai, Tenten and even Neji, who had been reading a war manual, turned to look at him for several long moments. They looked at one another with odd looks upon their faces as if to say, _'Is this guy stupid or what?', _whilst the blonde ninja waited patiently for the silence to be broken. Believe it or not, this often happened around him, he found out with trial and error is was best to ride out the silence.

'Did something happen in the village?' Tenten scowled after staring at Naruto for several long moments, she locked eyes with him. 'Something that happened to our dear Hinata-chan.' At that last few words he couldn't bring himself to look at her and Tenten triumphantly punched the air. 'I knew it! What happened to Hinata-chan then?'

Naruto's face turned serious for once and the still mask he had been hiding that entire visit soon reappeared. It took him the better part of an hour to describe the events that had taken place but afterwards it left the kuniochi thoughtful whilst Neji became even more pissed, if that were possible.

'Why aren't you dead Naruto?' The weapon mistress asked, her voice light as if it didn't matter.

Naruto felt like he had been sucker punched in the stomach. He sunk into a deeper gloom as Tenten stared at him, her face set in a curious expression of pity and shock.

'I keep asking myself the same thing.'

Tenten looked shocked as if that wasn't the same train of thought she was following. She itched to go over and tell him that everything would be fine, Naruto was looking particularly depressed, take off your belt and pants, and grab a chair depressed. She decided to lighten the mood by taking a shot at her team mate, it was always fun to insult successful people.

'I was talking about why Neji didn't kill you for endangering his precious cousin.' Tenten laughed, secretly cringing at the instant stunning force of a Hyuuga death glare. She knew that it was instinctive but it still hurt anyway, seeing such venom from the guy she had her eye on for god knows how long. In her mind, Tenten quickly made a mental note to make it up to him later, possibly by offering him new weaponry and then running fast in the opposite direction.

This did nothing for the oppressive, tense atmosphere in the room. If the air could be coloured, Naruto's head would be covered in a navy screen with wiggly lines going down it, he was already curled up in a foetal position, his head resting on his knees like a small, terminally depressed child or Gaara, both descriptions were equally apt.

'Dinner time!' Tifa interrupted with a remarkable sense of timing, ringing a tiny golden bell at the same time. She beamed before pushing them all around with a surprising strength considering her age and size.

All the Konoha shinobi began to troop into the dining room when they turned at knocking upon the front door. Neji turned, his brow furrowed as if not liking whoever was there. He held his arm out, barring Tifa's bustling walk to see the who it was.

'I'll get it.' As Neji walked out of the room, Kurenai stopped in front of Naruto.

'We'll get her back Naruto-kun.' She said in a kind voice, as she reached out to lightly touch his shoulder in a gesture of reassurance.

'How can you be so sure.' Naruto said softly, as if the life had been drained out of him since Hinata had left his life.

'Hinata might seem weak, but she's got a strength that most people don't see.' Her teacher nodded. 'She won't let them take her without fight.'

Naruto's face softened in memory, a little of the familiar energy in his eyes returning. 'Thank you.'

As they entered the room, Tenten was already seated, folded napkin in lap. She smiled at the pair of them and Naruto, rather gallantly, took out Kurenai's chair for her, before sitting down himself. Tenten suddenly shivered, rubbing her arms and looking around in bewilderment.

'Did it just get colder in here or was that just me?'

Naruto looked up sharply, his mouth falling open at the instantly recognisable spike of chakra. He sank down, his head touching the table, and mock tears streaming down his face. _'I just wanted to eat dinner without running to the toilet, being attacked by rogue ninjas or having two angsty people at the table, is that too much to ask?' _

'Sasuke.' He said the name with loathing, since joining the ANBU Sasuke had become more of an ass, if that were any way possible. 'You bastard.' Naruto added, at the cocky smirk on his rival's face.

'Hey dumbass.' The Uchiha said cheerfully, appearing in the doorway.

'The Uchiha is here to join us for dinner.' Neji said frostily, appearing a full head over Sasuke's. Sasuke looked up in bemusement, not in the least bit intimidated by the Hyuuga's impressive death glare. Even Naruto-the-dense had a feeling that if looks could kill, the Uchiha male would be spending his life under frozen nitrogen with Neji on hand to smash him into pieces.

'Hi!' A playful voice said in a sultry alto. Naruto's piquant interest aroused, he started at the petite woman who had just appeared. She resembled a fully grown Hinata, or what he what he would suggest in four or five years time if he had included a description of a pin up model.

'As is my cousin, Rena.' At this, she pulled Neji down to her level and giving him an affectionate peck on the cheek to his immense irritation.

Naruto sighed, up until this moment had relished the chance of enjoying a good meal.

'I'll sit here.' Sasuke said as he began to move to what was becoming defined as the female side of the table, his eyes on the seat between Tenten and Rena. As their backs were turned to finish the introduction between the two kuniochi and the Hyuuga newcomer, Naruto watched an amazing exchange between the two geniuses.

Neji's face Byakugan-ed up, and he feinted an open palmed blow to Sasuke's solar plexus, only to be smoothly blocked by a tap of Sasuke's finger to Neji's wrist. He retaliated by elbowing Neji in his ribs before attempting to disarm Neji by sweeping his feet under him.

While Sasuke's centre of gravity was low to the ground with the motion of his blow, he swung upwards stabbing at Neji with a fish fork. The Hyuuga swayed back and before Sasuke could manage another swipe, he had disarmed him with a paralysing strike to a shoulder pressure point. Sasuke gritted his teeth at the pain and retaliated by picking up a cake knife and throwing it kunai style at the Hyuuga.

'_The steak knife would be better, longer range although harder to hide.' _Naruto thought absentmindedly, blocking the missile with a dinner plate. Not many people knew this but Naruto was a master of the art of hidden food fighting, an exclusively male art of attacking another man's person for his food whilst women weren't looking.

It was over in the eye blink it took for Kurenai to turn around at the slight noise. Before she could turn to Naruto, he grabbed the fish fork out of the air and pocketed the small utensil, not quite willing to explain what a fish fork was doing in the eye of the stuffed fish behind him. There was a limit to the stupidity that people suspected of Naruto, and eating a wall mounted Singing Bass was one of those things. He placed the plate back upon the table making it appear as if he had just rearranged seats for Sasuke.

As Neji gave him a quick flick of his fingers as thanks and Sasuke gave a glare which demanded him to hand over the valuable weapon, Naruto sighed again. Dinner would only be worse if Gaara was also here. He frowned as a thought came to him.

'Can you eat in a Sand castle?'

Both scions stared at him before continuing their battle for ultimate dinner supremacy, in the meanwhile the female kuniochi gossiped about other kuniochi.

GAARA IS MAH BISHIE!!! –waves doll- 

In the Kazekage's tower . . .

It had turned out to be a good day for the Sand country, a cool twenty eight degrees with a breeze, the village's shinobi were home safe, the children were heading back from school, civilians were doing civiliany things and as always there was a mountain of paperwork for the Kazekage to complete.

As the Kazekage sat calmly doing his paperwork, he sneezed loudly. Gaara blinked in alarm, looking down at himself in pure surprise.

'What the hell was that?'

UCHIHA ITACHI IS MAH BISHIE!!! –waves doll- 

Back at the temple,

Itachi and Kisame were still walking.

They continued to walk, first down stairs, then up stairs, than left, than right, than left, than right, spiralling left, spiralling right, up stairs, left, right, left, right and door after door, empty room after empty room, corridor after corridor, all the while gradually walking deeper into the heart of the temple. By then they could no longer hear the rain, the only sound was the soft chuffing of their sandals hitting the floor. There was a deep chill emitting from the temple walls. It seemed like it would never end when finally they had stopped.

Itachi continued on, oblivious to the genjutsu that had dissipated under his baleful glare.

Kisame on the other hand, freaked out upon seeing his partner walk right into a blank wall.

His hand shot out, grabbing onto Itachi's wrist. His partner turned slightly and shook him off in annoyance. He started to walk forwards, only to be forcibly restrained by Kisame once more.

'What is the matter.' Itachi said glaring back at Kisame who was staring at a spot in front of him.

'You keep trying to walk into that wall Itachi-san.' Kisame replied in hurt tones.

'What wall.'

'That wall.' The sharkman said running his hands down an imaginary space in front of him, his palms began to brush against a perfectly empty space, not faltering in the least as if he were really touching a wall. Itachi watched sceptically, either Kisame was delusional or his partner was an extremely good mime with a nonexistent sense of humour. Kisame turned as if expecting Itachi to see what he was seeing, Itachi reached out again.

'Stop that.' He said sharply as Kisame reached out for him again, he lightly tapped Kisame's cloaked arm sending a pulse of chakra through the taller man's body. 'It is nothing more than a genjutsu, you should be fine now.' Itachi started forward, only to be bodily hauled back by Kisame.

'Itachi-san! Can't you see that pit of snakes in front of you?' Kisame gaped, looking at disgust at the writhing ball of snakes in front of him. Large black mambas sinuously diving in and out of sight, the dry rasp of scales against scales was driving him crazy as was that peculiar scent of reptile.

' . . . you just said there was a solid wall there Kisame, now you are telling me there is a different and if possible even stupider illusion in our way?' Itachi said patiently before reaching out for his partner's arm once more. 'Do you see anything now?' The Uchiha said with the patience of an adult explaining to a child.

'No.' Kisame said in surprise, gingerly tapping the floor where the pit had been. 'What you say makes perfect sense, but when I was under it seemed like they were really there. I could even smell them Itachi-san.'

'That is the nature of a genjutsu, to fool all the senses.' Itachi recited dryly. 'Let us be off.' As soon as he let go of Kisame's arm, he found himself being lifted into the air. 'What is it this time?' His voice annoyed, not even shocked the sudden height change although he did look slightly surprised when Kisame's placed him over his shoulder.

'There's a squad of ANBU after us Itachi-san! We have to make our escape now in case they kill us!' Kisame said this with such utter conviction, Itachi had to give the creator of the genjutsu some credit, albeit grudgingly.

'Put me down Kisame, don't be afraid of the mean ANBU.' He once more released the genjutsu and stared up at his partner. 'This is becoming irritating Kisame, I don't want to have to do this again. I will knock you out and bring to back to consciousness at a later time.'

'Isn't that rather inconvenient? You would waste energy carrying me and all.'

'What would you suggest Kisame?' Itachi said sarcastically.

'Alright, it seems like this genjutsu you mentioned earlier affects my vision. I have to keep in constant contact with you to maintain it. So to do anything we need to keep in contact, so I'll just hold onto your arm.'

' . . . is there any other alternative to that?' The Uchiha said peevishly. 'I would rather not participate in this activity, considering our reputations as S-rank shinobi and all. Skipping does wonders for muddying a reputation as we found out from that Snake bastard.'

Kisame shifted his feet looking uncomfortable. 'Well, its that or . . .' Itachi looked over. Kisame said in a small voice. ' . . . hold hands . . .'

Both of them stood them in uncomfortable silence, Itachi instantly moved over and offered his arm. It was awkward at first because of the height difference and the fact that no man would cheerfully touch another man in that way, it ended with Kisame holding Itachi's arm. Although Kisame kept trying to make it so they were more equals- as much as two males being linked at the arm can be. Itachi kept moving his arm in a way that Kisame had to keep clutching at Itachi's bicep.

After what felt like a walk the length of the Ninja nations, they finally got to the end of the corridor. They let go of one another faster than was could be considered humanly possible, Kisame barely had time to react before Itachi sucker punched him hard. The crunch of a well placed blow was heard and his treacherous partner stepped back, emotionless as ever.

He spat out several drops of blood. 'The hell was that for?'

'No more genjutsu?'

'No!' Kisame glared at him.

'I was just making sure.' Itachi said with a hint of mischief in his voice. 'I didn't want you doing weird things behind my back.'

Kisame death glared him. His hands moving in a powerful jutsu, turning his gaze to full death ray fury watching as Itachi turned to crumbled to dust, writhing in agony. Unfortunately for every grudge bearing ninja out there, no one had yet managed to formulate such a technique so he just mumbled under his breath. 'You'd be surprised what Deidara does behind your back . . .'

'What was that?' Itachi span around, looking suspiciously at Kisame.

'Nothing, nothing.' Kisame replied innocently, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in mouth.

They stood side by side at the entrance of what appeared to be a maze, judging from the high walls and fresco of a Minotaur nearby. There was quite a bit of intricate artwork adorning the walls, considering the tremendous lengths that had to be undertaken just to get there.

Elaborate mosaics covered the ground depicting the nearby forest as it must have appeared when the Hidden Leaf was being established. Semi-precious stones littered the walls highlighting particular figures such as the easily recognised 1st Hokage, battle scenes covered the walls showing off key moments in Fire country history.

It was basically a history lesson disguised as art, neither of them particularly appreciated art so they walked on by. What they failed to notice were the poisonous plants, belladonna, nightshade or angel's cap and the numerous others, that were intertwined amongst the uppermost decorations, quite out of place amongst the pretty ivy and other wall climbing species that had decorated the temple.

Kisame turned to Itachi, somewhat pleased at the turn of events. 'That was easy wasn't it-' Kisame was interrupted by a large double edged axe cleaving him in two, a few thousand senbon puncturing his body from every angles like an oversized blue pincushion and a flamethrower for good measure.

Itachi stopped and looked around, a peevish expression on his face. 'That was unexpected,' Itachi picked up some of the fallen senbon twirling them around. He frowned, looked over his shoulder and said in a mildly disappointed voice 'Kisame, you should have been paying more attention.'

The shark man appeared out of a puddle at their feet, an annoyed look on his face. 'Lucky there's so much water in our clothing.' His gaze turned to the traps, which had folded back into their resting places, a pleased smile appeared. 'A gauntlet run, how amusing. Itachi-san?'

Itachi tossed the senbon onto the exact place that Kisame had stepped, nothing happened. 'Pressure plates.' Kisame ran through several quick hand seals making several water clones of himself appear, completely draining the puddle. One ran forward and was instantly killed in the same way that their creator had earlier.

Itachi nodded. 'Let's go.' They both dashed into the maze, with the clones leading the way as fodder for the traps. Itachi ducked the axe kicking it to one side, with a resounding crash. Kisame performed a series of hand seals to block the senbon with a wall of mud. By the time they had run past, the flamethrower had just unfolded from the mouth of what ironically looked like an Uchiha male.

Itachi looked around as he continued running, the floor started to drop and he threw himself over the gaping chasm having a good look at the sharpened spikes below covered in the mouldering remains of other unfortunate shinobi. 'Left!' They both turned and ran down the corridor.

A massive boulder, the size of a small house, thundered down behind them and they turned right to escape it. Itachi ran right, than left, than, right than the second left finally sighting a room. His Sharingan popped up, making everything slow motion, as he noticed a shadowy door at the far stretch of the room, maybe a good two hundred metres. He stepped forwards and that took a cautious step backwards as the floor slide away to reveal gaping darkness.

Kisame took a step forward only to hoisted back by Itachi. 'Its not an illusion.' He stepped back to get a better view of the passage. A scowl crossed his handsome face, what dumbass thought of this? Most of the tiles had fallen away, revealing a pathway which had more twists and turns in it than a bag of pretzels. Only maybe two metres wide and instead of the two hundred metre dash, as the crow flies, it was more like five hundred metres now.

Itachi looked up as ten deadly looking crescent blades swang downwards. The dark haired Akatsuki ran past the blade's left and felt himself slipping backwards. He looked down and his mouth tightened as he glared at the conveyor belt assembly beneath him.

He almost tripped over, as his cloak was trapped in the tiles, recovering his balance elegantly. He looked up giving the ceiling an Uchiha death glare as he cursed the makers of the temple to burn under the wrath of his Amaterasu for the inconvenience.

Itachi almost tripped over again as his cloak got stuck again in the whirling cogs, narrowly avoiding the sharpened blade that whistled past his head. The Uchiha mentally cringed as he realised what he had to do.

As he flipped himself over, he picked up the hem of his Akatsuki cloak, revealing long muscular legs, to run along like a girl afraid of getting her skirts wet. Behind him he could hear Kisame's deep rumbling laughter. He death glared, not quite confident enough to turn back around and unleash several hours of extreme pain on his partner.

Kisame in the meanwhile, was taking advantage of this small lapse in decor for Itachi, possibly the evilest, badass kin slayer he knew. At that moment he would've cheerfully sold his soul for a camera.

Everyone in the Akatsuki would've given several decades of their life to see their youngest member brought down, Sasori would tease him mercilessly, Deidara would do that sneaky rat thing of his whenever he got a photo of Itachi, Kakazu would post it up on his 'internet' thing and Zetsu would just, sit there, grinning like a loon. The others would laugh until they cried probably.

'SCRAKKKKKKKKK!'

Kisame felt the icy cold fingers of an ancient primordial fear inch its way down his spine, upon hearing the shrill scream of rage from behind him. Ignoring his instinctive urge to dive deeply, he turned around to see what it was. Out of the ceiling, a ferocious ball of razored feathers and cruelly hooked talons exploded into the air. It sent a powerful backslash of wind their way, cream and brown barred wings snapping out to their fullest. It eyed Kisame off with vicious yellow eyes filled with madness before it screeched pure murder.

'Shat.' Kisame's beady little eyes popped, even Itachi looked surprised at its appearance. It was a big birdy indeed and not just any bird, it was a Sunaga Crowned Eagle, the fastest, meanest, blood thirstiest and most vengeful bird of prey in nature.

Once upon a time, the Wind country had breed them for war. They had been originally the size of a small cat, even at that size, able to take down monkeys thrice their weight. Somehow, mysteriously, they had managed to get to the size of a large Clydesdale horses. However the stranger thing was how they could have possibly accomplished in the Hidden Sand and kept them feed, still a mystery to this day.

They had been a secret weapon for the Hidden Sand and Kisame's family were one of the many shinobi clans devastated by the screaming terrors from the sky, with their ability to kill with the force of a belly flopping whale.

Other countries had tried to create animals as deadly as this one, but few had created an animal that could be successfully trained to kill other humans and not kill their trainers. It was found through trial and error that birds had the exact right mix of blind loyalty and reckless stupidity to make great weapons.

The bird screeched once more and flapped its great wings, buffeting them with strong wings as they struggled to run to the end of the belt. They sailed through the air, losing precious seconds from the significant aerodynamic drag provided by their cloaks, mysterious yes, cool whooshing noise yes, unmistakably badass hell yes, convenient no. Itachi hastily threw both Kisame and himself out of the way as an ominous hissing noise began.

Out of the wall several hundreds slits appeared out of flowers and thousands of darts peppered the spots where they had just been. The pair continued along the wall, ignoring the twisting path beneath them. The going was tough even with this as the walls had been prepared for ninjas with dead chakra stones in the way. Several times the pair had stumbled, luckily the other person was always ready with an array of kunai to provide as footing.

Far ahead, like the light at the end of the tunnel, was a tiny square doorway. Itachi looked over at Kisame, who had been looking at him and they both broke into a run. Meanwhile the eagle was getting closer and closer, enough so that Itachi had felt the touch of talons against his cloak several times.

Itachi got though first, being the smaller and quicker of the pair. He shot through into a larger passage and watched impassively as Kisame continued to be chased by the bird, who had descended into a stoop, with its talons outstretched.

Luckily Kisame also got through, his feet shooting out from underneath him as soon as he felt the slight pressure from the talons. The force sent him tumbling through the doorway, feet first, Itachi released the door's lever and Kisame had just enough time to sit up and grab his rice paddy hat as the door closed to the tortured sounds of the screaming bird. He dusted his hat off before replacing it to its jaunty angle atop his head.

'You didn't have to do that, running would have achieved the same results.'

'It seemed the right thing to do.' Kisame said with a shrug.

They turned and were greeted by a darkened room, there was but a single point of light which illuminated the darkness. It gravitated towards a dusty stone pedestal, atop of which was a small mirror angled towards the east. The mirror was small, hardy bigger than a man's outspread hand, plain silver with gold chased carvings in the outlines of an intricate pattern.

They stepped hesitantly into the room, eerily quiet, Kisame and Itachi weren't surprised in the least when lights appeared out of no where and revealed coffin and coffin of enclosed stone warriors. Somewhere behind them, the door clicked shut.

Kisame twitched as one lid exploded as a partially decomposed arm punched through. His face was completely blank as a vaguely humanoid figure fell out. 'Zombies . . .'

' . . . ' Itachi eyed off the shuffling abominations as they lurched towards the pair, arms outstretched and encrusted with black ichor and flaking blood, before turning back to his partner. He shrugged as if encountering the living dead was an everyday occurrence. 'Well it could be worse, they could be,'

'Braiiiinnsss.' One moaned, a demonic lust placing a morbid facsimile of life into its eyes, stopping Itachi in midsentence. A flicker of annoyance crossed his face. He sighed and massaged his brow.

'I'll take care of this.'

'No Itachi-san.' Kisame said firmly, his hands moving in a blur. 'I will.'

The Uchiha watched on as he failed to identify the strange set of hand signals, he looked around as the walls began to creak and several leaks appeared, spouting large plumes of water. 'Kisame.' A faint bell tone of apprehension echoed within his voice, as the floor's water level began to rise alarmingly. As the first zombie, dragged itself within attacking distance of them, the water had already risen to chest height. Itachi called out his partner's name once more.

Kisame was sweating slightly as he finished yet another sequence of hand signals. 'Just one more minute.' He took another breathe and hunkered down in concentration, his face solemn. The immense height difference between the pair was making Itachi worry somewhat, especially since he had to resort to bobbing up and down for oxygen for the last few minutes. He paddled upwards once and took a great lungful of air, slightly vexed.

'-------!' A stream of bubbles erupted from the Hidden Mist warrior's mouth. Itachi had begun to black out from the lack of oxygen and he succumbed to breathing in water. Alarmingly the floor dropped out from underneath him and the Uchiha opened his eyes to find himself enclosed in a round glowing hemisphere of chakra enclosed oxygen.

'That's an interesting idea.'

'Its the reverse of the water prison technique.' Kisame said rather proudly. The zombies weren't at all hindered by the lack of oxygen, what with the being dead thing and all, they lumbered forwards, throwing themselves against the barrier. 'I figured since there was so much water around here, I might as well put it to good use.'

'What if you had failed? You haven't recorded this with the International Council for the Usage of Forbidden Jutsu, so you couldn't possibly have made this beforehand.' There was indeed a council for the usage of forbidden jutsu chaired by numerous shady organisations, missing nins and rogue nations. New data was recorded down as scientific discovery for example the new innovations in Sound techniques, based along sound waves and air pressure. Itachi was an active subscriber since he was seven and had submitted several articles himself.

'Spur of the moment. I was just inspired I guess.' He shrugged.

'Don't do something like that again.' Itachi said tersely. 'You faltered in the last atmospheric hand signal series, there was a possibility that would have been our last actions.'

'I can never remember the latent hand signals for fusion.' Kisame said bashfully. He looked up at the zombies. 'Kuchiyose no jutsu.' He said with a grin, placing his bloodstained hand against the miniscule of the sphere. A wave of force battered the bubble, a small whirling vortex began to spin within the water, repulsing zombies away like a child tossing rocks off a bridge.

Kisame grinned as the tip of a blunt white nose appeared, row after row of jagged teeth, then a slit eyed wedge appeared. A powerful streamlined body followed soon afterwards, razored skin rasped against the sphere as with one flick of its tail it circled the bubble lazily.

'S'been a while eh?'

'No kidding, Makoto. How's the wife and kids?' Kisame replied warmly.

'One kid's gone dolphin on us and the wifes been having trouble adjusting.' The shark said amiably. 'What do you want me to do?' The shark said with a lazy grin on its face, echoed by the one on Kisame's.

'Destroy them.' The water became cloudy as with one sweep the shark decimated row after row of shambling zombies. One zombie tried to rake its hands down the shark's muscled side, but with one annoyed flick of its tail, the shark propelled the zombie into the wall, shattering its limbs.

'So how are you going to get rid of all this water?' Itachi said as he watched the sleek, efficient killer at work. His mind was already working on a combination attack to use at a later date.

'Dunno. Didn't think that far ahead.' Kisame said as he scratched his head. 'Probably using all the water up as clones, I could them to take down that oversized chicken back there. If we don't then at least it'll be waterlogged from the explosive backlash.' He added in an amused voice. 'It could make a nice present for the Leader.'

Kisame carefully began to drain the room with the usage of his water jutsu, row after row of clones appearing. As the pair stepped outside the chakra infused bubble, Itachi caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye. He pushed Kisame out of the way, barely avoiding a bone breaking hit.

'This is getting on my nerves.' The Uchiha growled past gritted teeth. A massive fused mass of zombie was swaying in front of them, all fifteen heads locked on them, milky grey eyes filled with hate. He quickly set it afire with a handy vial of oil as well as barrage of fireballs.

Kisame popped out the mirror, it lay in his hands, reflecting back a clear black sky and a younger looking man. 'That was easy, I was expecting some more lame traps.' He sidestepped the zombie beast as it crawled towards them, he placed the mirror within a roll of bubble wrap and secreted it inside his robe.

'Let's head back.'

The only sound of their passage within the temple was the soft tinkle of the bells on their hats and the drip of blood that tricked out of Itachi's wound.

**SANTIAGO CABRERA IS MAH BISHIE!!! –waves doll-**

A/N- all the screen splitters are a little tribute to this continual fight that JAJapster and I have every so often on MSN. I say I like a cute guy, he says the guy is gay, I say I don't care, and recently he has accused me of liking girls because the guys look girly, but all really hot guys are a little girly. Think about, think about it, am I right or what? I think the vice versa is true as well, just a little bit.

Incidentally Santiago Cabrera aka Isaac Mendez is one of the guys off Heroes, such a hot broody little heroin addicted artist. I squeal every time he's on screen, don't watch Heroes btw, very addictive like crack. I got the first 14 episodes on a very busy weekend where I had to finish numerous assignments and get ready for exams, watched it all in two days. EACH EPISODE IS AN HOUR D!


	9. You idiot

BMR13- D chapter 9!

Wow . . . I have two readers . . . and they're both good friends, damn I suck. Meh, I write for fun, if I wanted reviews, I would stop screwing around with the GS readers. 10 chapters and they've yet to see even a hint of normal Hina/Sasu action aka. Mass orgy with illogical declarations of love.

, JAJapster you are still my bishie, no matter what gender you claim to be. Acknowledge my OC, el bastardo! Hanazaki Issei is BMR13's biatch damn you!

In other news, I'm going for a place in the Island and Oceania marching band for the Beijing Olympics X D. I'm guaranteed a place as long as I pay the money D , 5K.

"**I could write it, better than you ever feel."**

It was awkward, very, very awkward. Silence reigned around the dinner table, making itself at home whilst Kurenai and Tifa tried to get a decent conversation going, Naruto stared at the buxom Rena. Whilst Tenten had taken an instant dislike to the Hyuuga jounin and was now death glaring said buxom wench while the scions secretly fought underneath the table.

Naruto was keeping his hands busy trying to stop anyone from getting in the cross fire. He had already pocketed three forks, a steak knife, two butter knives and a spoon, and the barrage of cutlery wasn't going to be stopping anytime soon, as Sasuke reached for yet another utensil.

So he stomped onto the instep of Sasuke's foot, which promptly stopped the dark haired boy from grabbing Naruto's only remaining knife. He smiled at the older women who had stopped to find the cause of the muffled grunt of pain that had emerged from Sasuke's mouth.

'So Rena-san,' she gave him a warm smile which sent his heart pitter-pattering, 'I haven't seen you amongst the Jounin in Konoha, what do you do?' Naruto ignored the pointed glance from Sasuke at ignoring safety procedures in front of a civilian.

'Research.' The Hyuuga said enthusiastically. Tenten rolled her eyes at the nerdy enthusiasm within the older girl's voice. 'I've been posted to study the cause and effect of a cult within the Earth Country that have recently become active once again. Fascinating stuff, I was undercover for a while and they've been utilising an underwater spring with restorative properties as a means of spreading information about their movement.'

'Ahhhh, the Hollow Springs most probably, the water there is a potent antiseptic and actively accelerates healing. It cures most poisons and chakra related injuries.' Tifa said absentmindedly as she poured tea for Neji. 'Well guarded, and a joint commodity of the two countries that guard its tributaries, Lightning and Stone if I remember correctly, borders may have shifted since then so I can't be sure.'

Naruto, Neji and Sasuke all blinked in surprise at the onslaught of information.

'You sure know a lot about these Hollow Springs.' Sasuke murmured, his eyes narrowed and fixed on the grandmother in front of them.

'It does wonders for your skin dear, I'm seventy seven this year.' She replied, hearing him clearly, despite Sasuke being at the other end of the room. Only Sasuke seemed to recognise this inconsistency, with the rest just putting it off as her continued sentence.

'No way!' Naruto said adamantly. 'You don't look any older than forty!' At her sudden blush, he added loudly. 'I would still do you, easy!'

Everyone at the table stopped. Neji and Sasuke had just finished parrying blows with a pair of forks, Kurenai had choked on her soup, Rena was staring in a very Hinata-eque way and Tenten has stopped midchew, her meatball fell off her chopstick. As one everyone physically shuddered, with Tenten covering her mouth and looking a peculiar shade of green. 'I think I just vomited in my mouth a little.'

Neji nodded grimly, looking a little pale himself. 'I concur.'

Tifa was looking gobsmacked herself. 'Well . . . um, I'm glad I can still keep the boys coming at this age.' She said before she walked off, expertly balancing a stack of plates on her arm. A faint squeal of girlish excitement was heard from the kitchen before she walked in as cool and composed as ever, ready for another set of dishes.

'A very strange woman.' Tenten shaking her head, she pushed back on the chair to help Tifa with the dishes.

'Indeed.' Sasuke agreed, also getting up to help. The pair reached for a dish at the same time and their hands touched, making Sasuke smirk down at Tenten, causing her to blush furiously. Sasuke was a jerk, but he was a good looking one who at times could be charming. In a chain reaction, Kurenai was almost knocked down by the younger kuniochi as she fangirl screamed, and Naruto was elbowed sharply in the ribs as a means of Neji venting steam.

'-wheeze- I'm gonna get some sleep now.' Naruto said perkily, despite the pain in his lower ribs.

'I'll see you all in the morning then.' Kurenai waved as she pulled on her Jounin vest, heading outside.

'Need some help Tifa-san?' Rena said, ignoring her response as she grabbed several pitchers of emptied juice.

Neji was heading off without a word when Sasuke roughly bumped him with his shoulder. He looked down at his hand where the younger boy had tied a message to his wrist. _'You and me at dawn. Uchiha versus Hyuuga at Tsukihime go.' _Neji repressed the annoying thought of how he had gotten the message written and tied in such a short time, he returned Sasuke's intense brood and gave a little upwards nod.

His gaze returned to the table, an awfully small table now that it was just him and his former team mate there, as she snuck a glance at him he purposely looked away, gulping. _'That was close there.' _Neji was good around the ladies, but not ex-team mates- who are tomboys-who have suddenly grown boobs- and other curvy bits- but were still butch.

He snuck another glance at Tenten with his Byakugan. _'No bad Neji no!' _A mental image of what the clan elders would do if they found out brought shivers down his spine. When they were children they were threatened that if they misused their Byakugan, their eyes would turn red and then they would become an ugly Uchiha. This was even more firmly reinforced now that Sasuke was the only one left, what with his dubious inclinations and whatnot.

Neji wasn't the only one feeling the pressure, Tenten was freaking out about being alone with her old crush, although she was happy that the large chested Hyuuga in the other room was gone, stupid floozy. Genius the Hyuuga was, no doubt about that, but he had the social skills of a dead horse.

She snuck a glance at him, as always he looked goddamn hot, impeccably dressed in pristine white clothing. Although she was wishing he was still in the soaking white kimono he had been wearing, what with the way the folds had clung to his toned muscular body and his hair had been plastered to his face . . . she caught a sight of herself in the mirror, leering at him. Now was not the time to entertain naughty thoughts!

'Want to sit over here? I don't have cooties you know.' Tenten said frankly, inwardly surprised at her own audacity.

He walked around the table to where she was still seated, and sat down a seat away from her. Tenten gave him a pointed glare and patted the seat next to her, after a moments deliberation, he scooted over. She sighed once again in sheer exasperation, this was going to be difficult.

"**I could write it, better than you ever feel."**

'Blaarrrgh.' Naruto moaned as he clutched his stomach, eating a five course meal with a second helping of dessert had not helped his situation in the least. 'Urrrrp.' He belched before leaning against the wall.

'You're a mess Naruto.'

'Hey . . .'

Sasuke stopped besides Naruto, looking down at the blonde. 'Get a haircut you freaking hippy.' He rolled his eyes at the sheer stupidity of the comment, before walking a few steps ahead.

'I guess we didn't get to talk at dinner.' Naruto looked up in surprise. That was the closest to an apology Sasuke had ever gotten, which goes to show how being in the ANBU changed people. He had thought Sasuke would have ended up perverted or just plain all round fruity, judging from what he was like after the Orochimaru thing but luckily he had done the usual thing and mellowed out. Maybe one day he would become like Kakashi, without the love of heterosexual porn perhaps.

Naruto grinned, 'S'kay, I understand. I heard from Neji you were going after Hinata as well, care to join the three of us?' Naruto crossed his arms and looked at Sasuke, it had been a few years but Naruto had finally caught up height wises, well close enough at least. Sasuke was still just a bit taller, a few centimetres or so. Bastard.

'Three? Who is else is coming along?'

'Sakura-chan.' Naruto sniggered.

'Does she know about this?' Sasuke asked cautiously, there had been numerous occasions in the past where Sakura had been shanghaied for her medicinal abilities. She was getting good enough now that she could break your arm in three places before healing it back to normal.

'Maybe later, it would be more effective to split off and search this way.' Sasuke turned broody and Naruto knew better than to interrupt him, his rival wasn't one for talking at the best of times. He zoned out a little as his thoughts floated downstairs, his inner fangirl taking over as he realised the situation. _'OMG Neji and Tenten are downstairs . . . alone! They're going to hook up and make babies!' _He squealed inwardly, much to the disgust of the Kyuubi.

'**_Wonder how the little Hyuuga girl is doing entering the snake's den?' _**Its dark voice rasped. Naruto's good mood was instantly quashed, like the extinguishing of a lamp. He tried not to dwell on it too much, but he had trouble forgetting the anguished look in her eyes as she pleaded silently for him to rescue her. The Kyuubi laughed mockingly at him before settling down once more, when Naruto realised Sasuke was speaking.

'I'm tracking someone down, I'll join up later maybe.' Sasuke said lightly, willingly offering his help, a very odd change within the broody Uchiha. Naruto looked at him out of the corner of his eye, too odd a change, even considering the rapid changes of the ANBU corps to personalities it was a bit much.

'You went Hunter-nin?' Naruto blinked.

'After I became a Chuunin I was drafted.' Sasuke smirked confidently, the smug look became even more pronounced as he saw Naruto glare daggers at him in response to the comment.

'So who's the girl?' Naruto gave a sly grin and jabbed Sasuke in the ribs.

'Who?'

Naruto gave a chuckle. 'You know, Rena. The one with black hair and silver eyes and the body like this.' He started to trace a form in midair, sniggering.

Sasuke glowered. 'There's nothing going on.'

'Hehe, sure, Sasuke whatever. I didn't know you went for older women.'

'Idiot.'

Naruto stopped laughing. 'Bastard.'

They both glared then they gave little smiles. Sasuke turned to open his door, little scenes like this made him uncomfortable. 'Its been good to catch up.' And now he felt gay for saying that out loud, hopefully Naruto wouldn't take it too literally.

'Yeah.' Naruto turned.

'Sweet dreams, bastard.'

'Night, stupid.'

Sasuke didn't even look twice as he picked up his bag and leapt out the window, back into the pouring rain. An Akatsuki member was around, and he wasn't going to sit by and let them continue with their plans.

"**I could write it, better than you ever feel."**

Tenten sat on the same couch Neji was on and she was feeling very uncomfortable. Naruto, Kurenai, Sasuke and Rena had gone upstairs, while Tifa had gone to bed. So now it was just the two of them . . . and the silence was slowly killing her.

Tenten sighed. Guys, even though Neji was a very nice guy he was only a guy. He didn't start conversations, couldn't gossip and then answered in monosyllabic grunts and phrases. She pouted considering that it was easy to follow conversations that he could have elaborated on like his training/family/their team, that had swapped to the usual pleasantries 'You look well' blah blah blah and then to trivial small talk.

He had changed a lot since the last time she had seen him, both physically and mentally. While Neji had always radiated calm, the serenity in his features now was different, like he had come to terms with his demons and had accepted them. Or maybe he had just mellowed out, he seemed a lot more relaxed. Even though Neji had always been taller, he looked like he had grown a few inches and now towered over her. He had definitely gained a lot of muscle too and he was wearing elegant Hyuuga robes.

She suddenly blushed at that last observation, the clothes he was wearing looked new while she sat here in clothes she had gone patrolling in. They were fine but she knew they were a little ragged; it wasn't like she had a lot of shopping opportunities in a town this small. She had to fight the urge to run upstairs and change into something decent.

So Tenten decided to start up a conversation, 'So who was that girl Neji?'

'My cousin.'

'Oh.' Tenten felt bad for being jealous now, she noticed the look on Neji's face. 'So how are you holding up?' Tenten watched as Neji started to frown, which was always a bad sign.

Neji looked her straight in the eyes, as he always did when he was upset. 'Fine, I just wonder how Hinata-sama is doing,' Neji's eyes narrowed and his voice became distant. 'I just wished I had been there with her.' Neji instantly broke into the Hyuuga brood position at the last comment, his eyes were blank and staring as he began to contemplate the past.

'I'm sure she's fine.' Tenten said with a little smile, her voice filled with confidence. 'You've never let us down before and if she has half the confidence I place in you, she should be fine.' She mentally cringed hoping that didn't sound as cheesy as it did to her own ears. Judging from the slight crinkle to Neji's eyes, he was also appalled by the sheer badness of the comment.

The broody boy gave a little chuckle that he hid behind his hand, then his face once again turned seriously as he turned it into a slight cough. 'Thank you, Tenten.' Neji than gave her a slight smile that left her weak at the knees. He watched her intently as she began to blush slightly.

'My pleasure.' She murmured, touching his hand, they sat for a few seconds staring into teach other's eyes. Tenten looked down at their entwined hands. He had rough, warm hands why this came as a shock to her was strange. She was starting to enjoy the feeling when she realised the moment had passed and she jerked her hand away.

Neji turned to look, silver eyes bore into her and she couldn't look away. It was time to act in the now! Like a ninja should! 'Tenten, how do you feel . . . '

'About?'

'Us.'

Tenten fought the urge to squeal like a fan girl, this had been her most cherished dream over the years and she had been waiting patiently for the day to arrive and now. Now instead of jumping up and down and squealing, all she wanted to do was run outside and slam her head against a brick wall.

She was seriously freaking out, when she daydreamed about this, she, not Neji, had revealed her feelings then they had kissed, then she had woken up. Now it was a hideous nightmare where all she wanted to do was wake up. She looked up, yep, Neji was still watching her.

'I like you . . . a lot.' HunShe spoke with a lot of emotion, she didn't care to elaborate since it would seem stalkerish. This was because she had liked him since she had met him and her feelings had only intensified over the years when they had been in the same team. It had gone from sheer fangirl adoration to something deeper, as she found herself enjoying every second with him and learning the little things that brought a smile to his face. Like how he liked to eat cereal for dinner and horrible slasher flicks.

Now he was feeling the pinch as he saw the odd bitter-sweet smile on her face, it was his turn to talk, and he had no idea to say. He was articulate and soft spoken, probably not the best mixture when you want to tell a girl how you felt about her. 'Well . . . its just that.'

Tenten looked up smiling, it wasn't often the confident Hyuuga was at a lost for words. She thought it was cute. The brown haired girl watched Neji from the corner of her eye as he ran his fingers through his hair with an annoyed look on his face. She wanted to hug him but their relationship if you could call it that, had never been very physical more a mental relationship, they were more like work friends. As sad as it was, Tenten was probably closer to Lee than her crush Neji.

'I like you too.' He said somewhat dejectedly as if he was hoping to hear otherwise.

'Awesome.' Tenten said calmly, nodding. She stood up and Neji stood up with her, his puzzled and somewhat hurt glance made her smile before she walked upstairs. When she was gone, Neji sat down on the couch once more, his head in his hands.

'I'm a dumbass.'

"**I could write it, better than you ever feel."**

In Tenten's room . . .

The brown eyed girl calmly walked into her room, kicking off her clunky sandals before she sat down on her bed. She sighed before flopping down, eyes on the ceiling as she lay sprawled over the double bed with one arm over her forehead.

She then calmly stood up, grabbing her pillow as she did so. Before she walked over to the wardrobe, opening it and stepping inside.

Tenten then placed the pillow over her own face and screamed like a fangirl, complete with energetic jumping and waving of her arms, well as much as you could whilst holding a pillow to your face. She stopped momentarily, before taking a deep breath, smoothing down her ruffled hair and then she began to continue her excited squeals of delight once more.

She bolted for her bag of awesome ninja-y stuff, containing everything that a ninja might need to survive, it was not as impressive as Naruto's bag of ninja stuff perhaps but it had more pointy things so the match was close. Tenten upended it and began to search through for something, at last she came upon it and lifted it to the air, as if it were a Holy Grail. It was grungy piece of paper as well as a chewed down pencil.

Leaning against the wall she began to write, firstly she wrote her own name in the direct centre, before writing just below it "Neji" then the words written by young women the world over, the words: "4 EVA" She then sketched out a massive heart, with little hearts flying off it as well as a banner proclaiming the date of their engagement and the names of their numerous children.

"Tenten loves Neji" She wrote.

"Neji loves Tenten" She scribbled in what she thought was a manly handwriting, sharp curves, angular slants and a sprawling confidence.

"Mrs Tenten Hyuuga" She paused before saying her new name out loud. She laughed, 'That sounds so good, its so much better than Tenten -'

**WHOOOT! WHOOOOT! WHOOOOOOOOOT! Booop! Booop! Booop!**

Tenten's eyes widened in sudden recognition, she grabbed her bag of ninja stuff and began to repack it, before deciding there wasn't enough time. She picked up the barest essentials and ran for the door.

An arm grabbed her and she stared at the sleepy fox like face of Naruto as he yawned, rubbing his eyes. 'S'going on?'

'The northern dam's burst under the pressure of the rains, according to those sirens.' Tenten said jabbing a finger up at the air. 'We have less than twenty minutes before it floods the town.'

"**I could write it, better than you ever feel."**

D, I'm incredibly lazy. I've got a new set, yes set, of RPG's to play . . . oh the fun I will get up to.

Anyway, pig out on Easter eggs and whatnot. I will see you again whenever I feel the need to write random stuff D.


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